


UNITED STATES OF AJVIERICA. ^ 






i 



THE 



CLOSER WALK 



Oa 



THE BELIEVER'S SANCTIFICATION. 



HENRY DARLING, D.D. 




PHILADELPHIA: 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1862. 



s 



-> 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by 

J. B. LIPPIXCOTT & CO. 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 

Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



12, l^ h 



PREFACE. 



This little volume does not aspire to a place in 
the libraries of the learned. Its ambition is not 
for fame, but usefulness. 

It is addressed to those who have commenced 
walking with God ; and its simple purpose is to 
incline them to a closer and habitual communion 
with Him, and to show them how such a fel- 
lowship may be attained. 

That in our religious literature there is a want 
of a volume with this special aim, — a volume 
characterized by a simplicity of thought and style 
that will make it intelligible to all, and at the 
same time free from those theological novelties 
which have marred some modern treatises upon 
this subject, — the author of these pages has long 
felt. That they will fulli/ supply this want he 
dares not hope. It is, however, towards this end 
that they aim. 

For any minister of Christ to desire the exten- 



4 PBEFACE. 

sion of his usefulness beyond the limits of a 
single congregation, and for this reason to em- 
ploy the facilities of the press, is neither unna- 
tural nor presumptuous. But how much is the 
desire in this way to do something for his 
Master strengthened when, by the afflictive pro- 
vidence of God, a minister is temporarily exiled 
from all other fields of usefulness ! No longer 
permitted, as he was wont, with his voice to 
speak for Christ, he can hardly refrain from 
speaking through the printed page in His name. 

It is perhaps due to himself, that the author 
of this volume should say that its preparation 
and publication are entirely owing to such a fact 
in his personal history. 

May God add His blessing! 

H. D. 

Philadelphia, April 22, 1862. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. PAGE 

Sanctification — Its Meaning 7 

CHAPTER II. 
Sanctification — Its Character 22 

CHAPTER III. 
Progress — An Essential Characteristic of 

True Piety 36 

CHAPTER IV. 
Progress in Holiness — How it is Evinced 50 

CHAPTER V. 
Sanctification — How Attained , 68 

CHAPTER VI. 
Sanctification — Through Suffering 85 

CHAPTER VII. 

Paul — An Example of Sanctification 104 

1^ 6 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. PAGE 

Paul's Sanctification — The Method of its 

Attainment 121 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Great Motive to Sanctification 142 

CHAPTER X. 

Connection between Holiness and Usefulness 154 

CHAPTER XI. 

Progress in Religion Essential to Prevent 

Declension 175 

CHAPTER XII. 
Assurance of Hope — Its Relations to Sancti- 
fication 184 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Holiness Here — Its Connection with Glory 

Hereafter 196 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Holiness the Great Necessity of the Church 210 



®k a[l0S^r Mnlk 



CHAPTEE I. 

SANCTIFICATION — ITS MEANING. 

"Saviour! tbougti my rebellious will 

Has been by tby blest power renewed. 
Yet in its secret workings still 
How much, remains to be subdued !" 

Chaio-ottb Elliott. 

" Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort 
you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how 
ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound 
more and more."— 1 Thess. 4:1. 

^HEN our blessed Saviour was about 
to leave His sorrowing disciples, 
He offered in their behalf, to His heavenly- 
Father, the prayer, '' Sanctify them through 
thy truth/* That they had already entered 
upon the divine life, and were at heart 
the sincere followers of Christ, cannot be 




8 THE CLOSER WALK. 

doubted. The testimony of Jesus is ex- 
plicit : ^^ Now ye are clean through the 
word which I have spoken unto you." '' They 
are not of the world, even as I am not of 
the world." 

Paul's earnest desire for the Thessalonian 
believers — so frequently addressed by the 
endeared title of ^^ brethren" — was expressed 
in the words, ^^ The very God of peace sanc- 
tify you wholly;'^ and the same apostle 
rebukes the Jewish converts, who had been 
for some time Christ's disciples, for ^^ having 
need" — by reason of the feebleness of their 
spiritual life — ^^of milk, and not of strong 
meat." When Peter was about closing his 
public ministry, — at least, so far as his in- 
spired writings formed a part of it, — he did 
so by exhorting all who '^ had obtained like 
precious faith with him through the right- 
eousness of God," to ''grow in grace;" and 
the beloved John expresses his conviction 
of the continually increasing power of true 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS MEANING. 9 

religion in tlie soul, by the words, '^And 
every man that hath this hope in him puri- 
fieth himself, even as He is pure/' 

The work of grace upon the heart is not, 
then, completed when the soul first yields 
itself to the dominion of Jesus, and from His 
enemy becomes His friend. There is some- 
thing more in religion for a man to desire 
and seek after than an entrance, however 
truthful, upon God's service. Conversion — 
or a turning from sin to holiness — is not 
a final, but an initial work. It is only the 
first step in a path that is afterwards to 
be patiently travelled, or the first victory 
over an enemy that must in the future on 
many a battle-field be met and conquered. 
We greatly dishonor Christ's earthly mis- 
sion if we ever conceive of it as having any 
lower purpose than ^' that He might redeem 
us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself 
a peculiar people, zealous of good works." 

To designate what is thus accomplished 



10 THE CLOSER WALK. 

in the soul by the grace of God, subsequent 
to its truthful entrance upon the divine life, 
the word sanetifieation has generally been 
employed. It includes^ therefore, in its 
meaning, all the steps in religion but the 
first, and all the victories of the soul over 
sin, save that one which is fought at the 
very outset of its spiritual career. 

But the work comprised under this term 
needs, in order to be properly understood, a 
fuller explanation ; and this we can give in 
no better way than by inquiring into the 
condition of an individual at the moment 
when he has been enabled, by divine grace, 
to exercise a true faith in Christ. The first 
step in a Christian life taken, what are our 
relations to God, and what is our inward 
spiritual state ? 

Complete justification is a result that im- 
mediately follows the hearty acceptance of 
Christ as our Saviour. '^ There is therefore 
now no condemnation to them which are in 



SANCTIFICATION — ^ITS MEANING. 11 

Christ Jesus." The answer of Peter to 
the question of the convicted Jews at Pen- 
tecost, "Men and brethren, what shall we 
do?" was, ''Repent, and be baptized every- 
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the 
remission of sins." The very moment a 
sinner accepts of the finished work of 
Christ in his behalf, his sins, which were 
many, are forgiven; he is, for Christ's sake, 
accounted as righteous; and that law which 
before could be satisfied only by his eternal 
death, has now no claims against him. 

And this justification is in its very nature 
complete. It admits of no increase or de- 
crease. It can never be greater or less. 
Ferfect at its beginning, it can never make 
any advancement. The aged disciple who 
is in character, as well as years, '' quite on 
the verge of heaven," is no more fully par- 
doned, or more free from the condemning 
sentence of the law, than the young convert 
whose spiritual birth was but yesterday. 



12 THE CLOSER WALK. 

How difficult is it for us to realize this 
truth ! and the practical forgetfulness of it, 
into what a bondage to fear does it bring 
many a believer ! 

But, such the relations of the soul to God 
the moment it exercises true faith, what 
is its inward spiritual state ? '^ Whosoever 
believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of 
God." "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, 
he is a new creature : old things are passed 
away; behold, all things are become new." 
That same faith which, by reason of the 
relations of Christ's atonement to God's 
law, is the condition of our complete justifi- 
cation, becomes, for the same reason, a power 
for our inward regeneration. 

Few truths are more frequently or beauti- 
fully taught us in the sacred Scriptures than 
this double work of Christ in our behalf. 
In the old Levitical economy — which was "a 
shadow of good things to come" — there were 
two kinds of offerings which were always to 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS MEANINa. 13 

go together. The first, or burnt-ofFering, 
was a bloody sacrifice, and a holocaust ; the 
second, or meat-offering, a bloodless obla- 
tion, and only partly consumed by fire. 
One was propitiatory, the other eucharistic. 
In the one, we behold penitence laying its 
hand on the head of the innocent sufierer, 
and praying to be spared for that suff'erer's 
sake; in the other, gratitude making its 
return for the unspeakable gift, by the dedi- 
cation to God of the offerer's person or pro- 
perty. The burnt-ofi'ering was a kind of 
fact-picture of that divine sacrifice by which 
alone sin could be pardoned ; the meat-ofi'er- 
ing, a beautiful symbol of the forgiven sin- 
ner's willing and cheerful presentation of 
himself to God's service. 

In that incident in Christ's crucifixion 
related by John, — '^ But one of the soldiers 
with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith 
came there out blood and water," — it is quite 
possible that some Bible-readers see only a 

2 



14 THE CLOSER WALK. 

singular pathological phenomenon ; but the 
inspired apostle marks it as memorable and 
significant. In his Gospel he repeats it with 
a triple asseveration ; and when, in old age, 
he sat down to write his Epistles, he indicates 
its spiritual importance by again referring 
to it, in the language, '^ This is He that came 
by water and blood, even Jesus Christ ; not 
by water only, but by water and blood." 
The incident, then, was a symbol of some 
great truth ; and, as blood in the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures is always used to denote 
expiation, and water to symbolize purity, 
we are constrained, in that baptismal flow 
from the pierced side of Jesus, to recognize 
the two great and indissoluble benefits of 
justification and regeneration which we 
derive from His death. 

And how strikingly is the same fact 
shadowed forth in the two sacraments of the 
Church ! Indeed, what are these but twin 
emblems of these twin benefits? That sacra- 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS MEANING. 15 

mental water which in baptism falls upon 
the broW; like those holy drops which fol- 
lowed from the spear of the Koman soldier, 
has as its verity that change which is wrought 
in the heart by the grace of Jesus Christ. 
It is emblematic of purity. It signifies the 
sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost. 
While the bread and wine which in the Sup- 
per is broken and poured out, like that blood 
which crimsoned the beloved side of Jesus 
on the cross, has as its verity the great truth 
that '^ He was wounded for our transgres- 
sions, and bruised for our iniquities." 

But here, in closely examining that in- 
ward spiritual state into which the believer 
is by faith brought, we observe that in one 
particular it diff'ers very essentially from 
that relation to God which the same faith 
has established. The justification that follows 
immediately upon the sinner's acceptance 
of Christ is, as we have already remarked, 
complete. But this is not so with that in- 



16 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

ward and spiritual change which is simul- 
taneous with justification. 

The term most generally employed in the 
sacred Scriptures to denote this change is a 
new birth; and that in its very nature im- 
plies the possibility — if not the necessity — 
of progression. Life is perhaps never, save 
in the reality of its existence, a complete 
thing at first. It has its beginning, usually 
small and feeble, and its subsequent stages 
of fuller and stronger development. In the 
vegetable world there is ^^ first the blade, then 
the ear, and after that the full corn in the 
ear;" and in the animal world life has its 
various stages of infancy, youth, manhood, 
and old age. 

And the same idea is implied in the term 
'' new creature," which inspiration has some- 
times employed in speaking of this change. 
At the first exercise of His creative power, 
God made few things in the material world 
with all that completeness that we now behold 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS MEANING. 17 

in them. Time elapsed ere they were fully 
fashioned and formed. This beautiful world 
itself was once '^ without form and void, and 
darkness was upon the face of the deep ;" and 
even after '' the Spirit moved upon it/' it 
was only in periods widely separated from 
each other that it successively became the 
home of its present almost endless variety 
of plants and animals. 

And with this agree the whole history 
of the Church, and the personal experience 
of every believer. If that spiritual change 
which is the result of the first act of faith 
was perfect and complete, then would its 
subject never afterwards lapse into sin; 
then Job would never, even for a moment, 
have complained of God's ways, David would 
never have been guilty of the heinous crime 
of adultery, and Peter have never denied 
his Master. 

Upon this supposition, there would also 
have been no room for those earnest long- 



18 THE CLOSER WALK. 

ings after God and holiness that so pre- 
eminently characterized Bible saints. Then 
the Psalmist would not have exclaimed, 
'' My soul thirsteth for God, for the living 
God : when shall I come and appear before 
God?" nor would he have uttered those 
words, so expressive of present unrest, ''I 
shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy 
likeness." 

Nor yet, again, could the believer's life be 
a battle, — a constant struggle with sin, — ^if 
his regeneration was so complete as to leave 
within him no remnants of depravity. De- 
lighting '^ in the law of God after the inward 
man," Paul, upon the supposition that we 
are considering, could not have still ^' seen 
another law in his members, warring against 
the law of his mind, and bringing him into 
captivity to the law of sin which was in his 
members." 

Why, also, those exhortations addressed 
to believers, ''Watch and pray, that- ye 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS MEANINQ. 19 

enter not into temptation;" ''Take unto 
you the whole armor of God, that ye may 
be able to withstand in the evil day;" or 
those petitions contained in the prayer 
taught by Christ to His disciples, '' Lead us 
not into temptation, but deliver us from 
evil;" if regeneration is not an initial 
work, and if, after its blessed experience 
by the soul, there are not temptations to be 
met, spiritual conflicts to be waged, and a 
higher degree of inward purity to be at- 
tained? 

Here, then, is the precise meaning of 
eanctification. Having to do with a soul 
which has already been pardoned and re- 
generated, in which the life of Christ has 
been commenced, it is that life going on- 
ward and upward to perfection. It is in 
the spiritual world what manhood is to 
infancy, or what the full corn in the ear is 
to the blade, in the natural. It is '' perfecting 
holiness in the fear of the Lord." It is 



20 



THE CLOSER 



having ^' every thought and feeling brought 
into captivity to the obedience of Christ/' 

being 

becoming 



IS 



filled with all the fulness of 



perfect 



even as our 



Fa- 
and, 



It 

God, 

ther which is in heaven 

^^eaving the nursery and its pattering by 

rote of elementary truths, it is proceeding 

to the attainment of a vigorous maturity in 

truth and holiness." 

It should, perhaps, be here remarked that 
the meaning just given to the word '^sancti- 
fication" is rather theological than Biblical. 
The sacred writers, in their use of it, do not, 
ordinarily, exclude the first step in the di- 
vine life, but employ it as comprehending 
all that is done by the agency of God's 
Spirit in reclaiming men from their apostasy, 
and in preparing them for heaven. As when 
the tabernacle and the altar, with the vessels 
that pertained to them, withdrawn from all 
profane uses and solemnly set apart to the 
worship of Jehovah alone, were said to be 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS MEANING. 21 

sanctified, so, when a sinner is separated 
from the world and attached to the service 
of God, the whole work of his salvation is 
frequently designated in the sacred Scrip- 
tures by the same term. 

But this general and comprehensive use 
of the word, is in no way opposed to the 
limited signification we have given it. In- 
deed, the same thing is true of all the terms 
employed by inspiration to denote the work 
of God upon the soul. With a specific mean- 
ing, a peculiar appropriateness to designate 
some particular part of the great work, they 
are still generically employed. The very 
moment, however, we attempt to isolate any 
portion of that work and distinctively to 
speak of it, we rightfully come back to these 
terms and employ them in their specific 
meaning. And this is just what we have 
done with regard to the word '^sanctifica- 
tion." 



22 THE CLOSER WALK. 



CHAPTER 11. 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS CHARACTER. 

" The faith, that unites to the Lamb, 

And brings such salvation as this. 
Is more than mere notion or name ; 

The work of God's Spirit it is, — 
A principle, active and young. 

That lives under pressure and load. 
That makes out of weakness more Btrong, 

And draws the soul up"97ard to God." 

" First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in 
the ear." — Makk 4 : 28. 



E have already indicated, in our 
attempts to define sanctification, 
one of its peculiar features. It is pro- 
gressive. Into a gracious state we come 
instantaneously. Every man must be either 
the friend or the enemy of God, and must 
sustain such a relation to the divine govern- 
ment as to be, at any moment, either re- 
ceived into paradise, or doomed to endless 




SAKCTIFICATION — ITS CHARACTER. 23 

misery in hell. The first step in the divine 
life is never slow and tedious. The soul 
may have been long m preparing for it, but 
the actual turning from sin to holiness is a 
single and an immediate act. One moment 
''dead in trespasses and sins," the next we 
are ''new creatures in Christ Jesus." 

But once in a gracious state, our future 
spiritual advancement is progressive. In 
GRACE WE GROW. The principle of holiness, 
implanted in the soul at regeneration, is 
afterwards perfected in the fear of the 
Lord; and, the foundation of Christian cha- 
racter then laid, we are subsequently "built 
up a spiritual house." 

We have already said of life that it is 
never perfect at its commencement : we 
may now add the remark that it never be- 
comes so instantly, or at a single develop- 
ment. Infancy never reaches manhood by 
a single leap, nor does the blade at once 
ripen into the full ear. We plant our seed- 



PA THE CLOSER WALK. 

co/n in the ground, and say, ''It is yet four 
moLths, and then cometh harvest." Life 
develops itself, it is true, with very differ- 
ent degrees of rapidity, sometimes so 
quickly as to startle us, and again so slowly 
as to occasion some measure of impatience. 
Nature has its aloes and its ephemera, 
its plants of a century and of a day's 
growth ; yet in each is there progression. 
And is it otherwise with divine life? Are 
there in this analogy, so pre-eminently Scrip- 
tural, no points of resemblance ? 

In one of the Psalms, the sacred poet, 
speaking of the believer's life, compares 
it to one of those stately palm-trees 
that Oriental travellers behold standing 
in the plains or on the mountain-sides of 
Judea, '' like military sentinels, with their 
feathery plumes nodding gracefully on 
their proud heads." ''The righteous shall 
flourish like the palm-tree." What a truth- 
ful, as well as beautiful, picture does this 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS CHARACTER. 25 

inspired similitude give of the gradual 
progress of a believer in holiness! ^'The 
palm grows slowly, but steadily, from cen- 
tury to century, uninfluenced by those 
alternations of the seasons which afffect 
other trees. It does not rejoice overmuch 
in winter's copious rain, nor does it droop 
under the drought and the burning sun 
of summer. Neither heavy weights which 
men place upon its head, nor the importu- 
nate urgency of the wind, can sway it aside 
from perfect uprightness. There it stands, 
looking calmly down upon the world below, 
and patiently yielding its large clusters of 
golden fruit, from generation to generation."* 
But, while sanctification is progressive in 
its character, this progress is not always, 
nor perhaps generally, uniform. The wax- 
ing of the morning light, — a divine simi- 
litude to illustrate the path of the just — 
Christian character is, still, not ordinarily 

•* The Land and the Book, vol. i. p. 65. 
3 



26 THE CLOSER WALK. 

developed with sucli perfect regularity. 
Believers sometimes seem suddenly to make 
very great advances in holiness. Out of 
some terrible affliction, or from some marked 
deliverance from danger, they come greatly 
invigorated in all the graces of the divine 
life. Indeed, as Christians, they now hardly 
seem to us to be the same individuals as 
before. They have lost their spiritual 
identity, in their suddenly awakened and 
greatly invigorated Christian graces. 

And, doubtless, facts like these constitute 
one ground for the opinion, entertained by 
some, that sanctification is not progressive, 
but is a kind of ^^ second conversion," or a 
/' higher Christian life," reached in a moment 
by the soul. Yet precisely the same phe- 
nomenon is frequently seen in the develop- 
ments of the mind. Under the pressure of 
peculiar circumstances, the intellect, ordi- 
narily maturing slowly and with much uni- 
formity, has been known, almost in a mo- 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS CHARACTER. 27 

ment, to leap from a position of comparative 
obscurity and weakness, into one of the 
highest influence and power. 

That commissioner of the Scottish Kirk 
to the Westminster Assembly, — George Gil- 
lespie, — who rolled back the tide of Eras- 
tianism in that body with an eloquence and 
learning that seemed almost fabulous, came 
forth, like a brilliant meteor, out of com- 
parative darkness. It was the fearful dan- 
ger in which the truth of God was then 
placed, that stimulated his intellect, un- 
loosed his tongue, and made him, though 
much the youngest member of the Assem- 
bly, ''one of its most able and ready de- 
baters, encountering not only on equal 
terms, but often with triumphant . success, 
the most learned, subtle, and profound of 
his antagonists." 

Let none of our readers, then, forget this 
peculiar feature of sanctification. Instead 
of being the work of a day, it is the be- 



28 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

liever's spiritual vocation for life. It is 
something that, as Christians, we are to 
do continually. All the circling hours of 
our being are to be the periods of its exer- 
cise. It is a work to be begun, continued, 
and, in this life, never ended. Its full and 
glorious consummation will not be reached 
tiU, separated from all outward contact with 
evil, and the world^s weight lifted from the 
soul, it shall have entered the mansion pre- 
pared for it from the foundation of the 
world. ^^ The souls of believers are at their 
death made perfect in holiness, and do im- 
mediately pass into glory." (Shorter Cate- 
chism, Q. 37.) 

And this slowness of achievement, and 
tardiness of the final result, it must be con- 
fessed, is the most trying and disheartening 
fact in our spiritual life. Men enlist for a 
life-battle far more reluctantly than for a 
summer's campaign ; and run with less 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS CHAHACTEE. 29 

alacrity in a race when the goal is distant 
than when it is just at hand : 

" If but this tedious battle could be fought, 

With Sparta's heroes, at one rocky pass, — 
One day be spent in dying, — men had sought 

The spot, and been cut down like mower's grass. 
If in the heart of nature we might strive. 

Challenge to single combat the great power, 
Welcome the conflict ! But no ! half alive, 

We skirmish with our foe long hour by hour." 

But, while this is true, let it not be for- 
gotten that in this battle every onward 
movement is a glorious victory ^ not only 
because it helps on the final consummation, 
but because in itself it glorifies God, and 
promotes our own highest happiness. 

But, in addition to this peculiar feature 
of sanctification, there is another, worthy of 
special notice. It is a growth, "VVe are all 
familiar with two ways in which objects 
increase in this world. Some progress by a 
vital force within. They have an inherent 
power of self-enlargement. Others increase 
only by external and outside additions. A 

3* 



30 THE CLOSER WALK. 

tree is an illustration of the first of these 
methods of increase; a house, of the second. 
In the one there is a vital, self-active principle, 
which, carefully selecting new matter and 
taking it into its own organization, by some 
subtle process of digestion and assimilation, 
leads it continually to deepen its roots, en- 
large its trunk, and send out wider and wider 
its branches. In the other there is no inter- 
nal power of production, but every increase 
of volume is wrought entirely by the applica- 
tion of external force. The first is a growth ; 
the last, a mere mechanical enlargement. 

Now, of these two methods of increase, 
sanctification, as a progressive work, belongs 
wholly to the first. The tree, and not the 
house, is its truthful type. Men are never 
built up in holiness as the architect adds 
stone to stone in his edifice, each new block 
having no necessary affinity with those upon 
which it is laid. True Christian progress 
is always a groivth. It is the natural efflores- 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS CHARACTEE. 31 

cence of a spiritual life divinely imparted 
to the soul. That rich cluster of heavenly 
graces that we sometimes behold adorning 
the character of a matured behever — just 
like that golden fruit which in summer we 
see hanging from the tree's branches — is the 
natural and necessary outgrowth of his new 
and spiritual life. 

And how beautifully is this characteristic 
of sanctification illustrated in the various 
similitudes that are employed to describe it 
in the sacred Scriptures ! These — with rare 
exceptions — are living, active things, and 
such as possess inherently the capacity of 
growth. The believer is '4ike a tree planted 
by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth 
his fruit in his season." ^' The kingdom of 
heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, 
which a man took and sowed in his field." 
'' I am the vine, ye are the branches." 
''Henceforth be no more children, . . . but 
speaking the truth in love,. grow up into 



32 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

Him in all things, whicli is the head, even 
Christ." Indeed, so full are the sacred 
writers of this idea, that when employing 
an image that would not naturally admit of 
it, — that is itself dead and inanimate, — they 
yet sometimes constrain it — if we may so 
speak — to embody this conception. Thus, 
when Paul speaks of Christ as the corner- 
stone of the Church, and all believers as 
necessarily built upon Him and constituting 
apart of His spiritual house, the figure is in 
itself clearly one of simple superposition. 
Yet observe how, by an almost improper use 
of words, he vitalizes it : ^^In whom all the 
building, fitly framed together, geoweth 
unto an holy temple in the Lord." 

To this view of the character of sanctifi- 
cation we should add — not, it is true, as an 
essential and necessary characteristic of it, 
but as one highly desirable — that it should 
be symmetrical. All the graces of the 
Christian life should be harmoniously and 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS CHARACTEE. 33 

proportionally developed. None should be 
dwarfed, none overgrown. Zeal should not 
outstrip knowledgCj nor behind knowledge 
should virtue — a manly courage equal to 
all duty— ever lag. With love to God 
brotherly-kindness and charity should go 
hand in hand ; and he who has been strong 
to do for his Master should not be less 
patient to endure for Him. 

In that beautiful passage in Peter's Second 
Epistle where the apostle exhorts all be- 
lievers to ''add to their faith, virtue, know- 
ledge, temperance, patience, godliness, bro- 
therly-kindness, charity," the reference, as 
scholars tell us, in the word rendered in our 
version ^^addj' is to a choir of well-trained 
musicians ; and as each of these faithfully ful- 
fils his part, — as no one is remiss in his duty, 
but all together blend their notes in faultless 
harmony, — so all the graces of the Christian 
life, supplementing each other, and together 
forming one complete whole, should be 



84 THE CLOSER WALK. 

^^ added'' one to another. It is not to the 
cultivation of a single isolated grace that 
the apostle here calls believerS; but to the 
symmetrical development of all. 

And, to enforce this exhortation, we may 
perhaps safely say that no more beautiful 
or convincing exhibition of Christian cha- 
racter can be made to the world than this. 
Every mind delights in symmetry. Its pre- 
sence in the human form is essential to 
beauty. It constitutes the highest charm of 
the fine arts. We can have no true music 
without chords, no good poetry without 
rhythm, and no painting without harmony 
of colors. '' The completeness of the moral 
system propounded by Christ is a mark of 
its divinity ;" and so is that character which 
in all its parts has been fashioned by it. 

But, alas ! such spectacles are rare. Sanc- 
tification — a progressive work, a growth — is 
still seldom symmetrical. We cannot often- 
times truthfully describe a Christian's cha- 



SANCTIFICATION — ITS CHARACTEE. 35 

racter by simply linking together tlie various 
graces of the believer's life. Candor fre- 
quently requires that we should separate 
them. We say : '^ He is a good man, kind 
and charitable, 6t^^ rough and irritable in 
manner. He is temperate and patient ; hut 
he lacks charity. He is reverent and de- 
vout ; but he is entirely destitute of stead- 
fastness and moral courage.'' 

Old countries — such as Greece and Eome 
— are full of buildings which are partly 
regal and partly rustic, their front adorned 
with Corinthian columns and a carved en- 
tablature that belonged to the age of Pericles 
or Augustus, but their roof and sides of 
the rudest modern art. Not unlike these 
edifices is oftentimes Christian character. 
Solid and valuable qualities are united with 
weak and valueless ones ; graces that charm 
us by their beauty, lie close by the side of 
defects that repel us. 



36 THE CLOSER WALK. 



CHAPTER III. 

PEOaRESS — AN ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTIC 
OF TRUE PIETY. 

" Rivera to tlie ocean run. 

Nor stay in all their course ; 
Fire, ascending, seeks tlie sun : 

Both, speed them to their source. 
So a soul that's bom of God 

Pants to view His glorious face. 
Upward tends to His abode 

To rest in His embrace." 

" But the path of the just is as the shining light, that 
shineth more and more unto the perfect day." — Prov. 4 : 18. 

;HE possibility of progress in holiness, 
on the part of those who have just 
entered upon the Christian's race, will, per- 
haps, be universally admitted; nor are there 
many who would deny this possibility to 
any believer at any subsequent stage in 
his heavenly journey. Few men regard 
either themselves or others as possessed of a 
complete Christian character. They admit 




PEoaREss. 37 

that before them are heights of piety still 
unreached, and within them imperfections 
that still need to be eradicated. 

And, as in the moral government of God 
the true measure of responsibility is ability, 
this possibility of progress, it is readily 
conceded, constitutes its duty. Men are 
solemnly bound to do and to be for Christ 
every thing that they can. He only is a 
faithful servant to whom the Master can 
say, as to the woman who in the house of 
Simon poured the ointment of spikenard 
upon His head, '' She hath done what she 
could." 

But, still further, all will admit that every 
believer is in the Bible solemnly commanded 
to make progress in holiness. ^'Grow in 
grace'' is the Scriptural injunction to all its 
recipients. No man has a right forever to 
remain '' a babe in Christ," but is continually 
exhorted by the voice of inspiration to look 
forward to and to strive after that glorious 



38 THE CLOSER WALK. 

period when lie shall come unto a perfect 
man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
fulness of Christ. The condition of the gift 
of holiness is its cultivation. Piety, divinely 
implanted in the soul at regeneration, is ^'a 
talent;" and he who will not '^put it to the 
exchangers" — who will not double it by dili- 
gent watching and prayer, so that his Lord 
may at '' His coming receive His own with 
usury" — must meet the doom of the unprofit- 
able servant. 

Two things, then, with reference to Chris- 
tian progress may be regarded as admitted ; 
its possibility J and its duty. Believers may 
advance in holiness : they have the capacity 
of spiritual progress. Believers ought to 
advance in holiness : God solemnly com- 
mands it. 

But can we stop here? Is this an ex- 
haustive statement of our theme ? Is Chris- 
tian progress a possibility, and a duty, only ? 
Do we speak the whole truth when we say 



PKOGRESS. 39 

that a child of God may and ought to grow 
in grace ? We are bold to affirm the incom- 
pleteness of the statement. There is a 
necessity in Christian progress, as well as a 
possibility and a duty, and a must in the 
believer's advancement in holiness, as well 
as a may and an ought 

Progress is an essential characteristic of 
true piety. It belongs to its very essence. 
It is one of its inherent qualities. It is as 
inseparable from it as the capacity to burn 
is inseparable from fire, or as the tendency 
to throw out light is inseparable from a 
luminous object. 

This is measurably true of all religions, 
even the false, when sincerely believed. 
Towards the character of the object wor- 
shipped, that of the worshipper must con- 
stantly progress. Looking at his God as the 
standard of perfection, and, consequently, 
condemning and seeking to eradicate from 
his own character whatever is unlike that. 



40 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

every man is necessarily changed into His 
image : lie becomes like his God. And as 
this process must go on in the soul just as 
long as the Deity remains the object of the 
man's supreme homage^ so must he ever 
grow into conformity to Him. 

Moreover, as every worshipper desires 
the favor of the object worshipped, and as 
reason dictates that this can be obtained 
only by conformity to the will and character 
of that object, it is obvious that self-interest, 
as well as the fact just mentioned, is con- 
tinually promoting in man an assimilation 
of character to his God. 

How full of sad evidence to this truth is 
the whole history of the idolatrous world ! 
The ancient Egyptians were brute-worship- 
pers, and bestiality — the lowest vice to which 
human nature can descend — was common 
among them. In bowing down to " birds, 
and four-footed beasts, and creeping things," 
they sunk themselves to the lowest depths 



PEOGRESS. 41 

of vice. Odin and Thor — the divinities of 
the Scandinavians — were hero-kings, blood- 
thirsty and cruel; and hence in the bosome- 
of that fierce race of Northmen the milk of 
human kindness seemed to be turned into 
gall. Venus — the personification of lust — 
was the goddess of Corinth; and, as a neces- 
sary consequence, her inhabitants were pro- 
verbial for dissoluteness. 

How exact these parallels ! Whole na- 
tions in moral character precisely like the 
divinities they worship ! It is said that the 
Chinese have this truth as a kind of proverb : 
*' Think of Buddha, and you will be trans- 
formed into Buddha. If men pray to Bud- 
dha and do not become Buddha, it is because 
the mouth prays, and not the mind."* 

And what is thus true of all false religions, 
is it not equally true of Christianity ? Poor, 
benighted pagans becoming assimilated in 



* Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation, p. 23. 
4* 



42 THE CLOSER WALK. 

their moral character to the various objects 
which they worship, — becoming like Odin 
and Thor and Venus and Buddha, — can it 
be otherwise with the Christian ? Must not 
he become like the august object of his wor- 
ship, — like Jehovah ? ''And every man that 
hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even 
as He is pure." 

But, again, that progress is an essential 
and inherent characteristic of true piety, is 
evident from the fact — already frequently re- 
ferred to — that Christianity is a life. When 
you take a living seed and cast it into the 
ground, you do not say that it may grow, or 
that it ought to grow, but that it must grow. 
It is its very nature not to remain as it is, 
but to unfold continually new forms of life 
and beauty ; and nothing but the entire de- 
struction of the living principle within it can 
prevent this result. Even though some 
superincumbent mass may for a while re- 
tard and hinder it in its growth, yet will 



PEOGRESS. 43 

it struggle for the light, and, sending out in 
every direction its roots, finally lift itself 
above the earth. 

Precisely thus is it with religion. If the 
beginning of piety in the soul were like a 
stone cast into a well, it might indeed be 
otherwise. We might then speak of the 
believer's progress in holiness as a possibility 
only. As, however, that beginning finds its 
true type in the living seed, we cannot speak 
of the Christian's progress as any thing but 
an inherent necessity. And hence, in that 
beautiful parable of our Lord in which the 
commencement of true religion, either in 
the world or in the heart of the individual 
believer, is said to be '^ like to a grain of mus- 
tard-seed, which a man took and sowed in 
his field," Christ immediately adds, ''which 
indeed is the least of all seeds : but when it 
is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and 
becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air 
come and lodge in the branches thereof." 



44 THE CLOSER WALK. 

But we have not yet concluded our argu- 
ment on this point. Between the various 
stages of progress that may be said to inter- 
vene from the commencement of the believer 
in the divine life, to his final and complete 
sanctification, there is a most interesting and 
vital connection. None are isolated. None 
stand alone, but all are so intimately allied 
that they perpetually call each other into 
being. Their mutual relations are not un- 
■ like the various links of a chain, so that, 
taking hold of one, the others, by a kind of 
natural sequence, follow. Just as we some- 
times say in regard to an unregenerate man 
who has taken the first step in sin, that 
this leads on, by a sort of moral necessity, 
to a long series of transgressions, is it with 
every advance made by the believer in the 
way of holiness. It draws him on towards, 
and almost certainly secures, other advances. 

To illustrate this thought. A child of 
God increases in knowledge. He has ob- 



PRoaEESS. 46 

tained a fuller perception of the divine cha- 
racter than he has ever enjoyed; and, as a 
necessary consequence, his emotion of holy 
love is at once greatly inflamed. The better 
vision of his God perfects within him the 
grace of Christian love. But then, in return, 
this awakened and increased love brings 
God nearer to his soul; and thus does the 
process continually repeat itself. Knowledge 
and love perpetually call each other into 
new and brighter existence. 

And thus is it with all the graces of the 
new life. No one will walk alone and unat- 
tended in the soul. They are a sisterly 
choir, and delight too much in the fellow- 
ship of each other to be separated. If a man 
increase in his confidence towards God,— 
if his faith in Him be strengthened, — his 
affection for Him will be correspondingly 
enlarged. If he love Him more, his hope 
will be confirmed. If he have a firmer con- 
viction that there remains for him a crown 



46 THE CLOSER WALK. 

hereafter^ he will be more patient to bear 
present trial. If he truly love G-od, he will 
love his brother also. 

Should any planet in our solar system sud- 
denly lose its centrifugal force and be wholly 
given up to the influence of the centripetal, it 
would commence a direct movement towards 
the sun ; but this movement; every advance 
however small, would accelerate, both by the 
increased momentum that the body has thus 
acquired, and by the increased attraction to 
which it would be subjected. Not unlike 
this is the movement towards God of a soul 
in which that power of sin which would 
lead it to fly away from Him, has been 
eff'ectually destroyed. It carries over from 
every stage in its progress an acquired 
momentum that prepares it for the next; 
while at the same time, advancing by every 
progression nearer and nearer to God, the 
attraction of His love is continually aug- 
mented. 



PROGEESS. 47 

In thus speaking of progress as an essen- 
tial cliaraoteristic of true piety, we do not, 
of course, mean to say that it is sponta- 
neous, something that comes of itself, and 
hence does not need attention and culture. 
This is seldom true of any life, and never of 
the divine. "Giving all diligence, add to 
your faith," is the Scriptural injunction. Be- 
cause the delicate exotic needs, in order to 
its growth, the most careful cultivation, — 
must be shielded from the rough wind and 
cold, and supplied with abundant sunshine 
and moisture, — men do not conclude that it 
is any less a living plant, nor suppose that 
growth is not one of its inherent qualities. 
Yet precisely this would we do in religion, 
if from the acknowledged fact that Chris- 
tian progress requires on the part of every 
believer, in order to secure it, the most dili- 
gent labor, we should infer that growth was 
not of all true piety an essential feature. 

We repeat, then, our proposition : Chris- 



48 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

tian' progress is not a possibility only^ but 
a necessity. True believers not only may^ 
and ought iOj grow in grace, but tbey mitst, 
Eeligion in the soul is a living, vital, act- 
ive principle. ^^Tlie righteous also shall 
hold on his way ; and he that hath clean 
hands shall be stronger and stronger." 

But, taking this principle with us into the 
Church of Christ, and making a practical 
application of it to the real life of God's 
professed people, how melancholy is the re- 
sult ! With some, — perhaps we might say 
with many, — ten, twenty, thirty years have 
been spent in Christ's service and yet no 
progress has been made, xlll that time has 
passed since the soul felt the first celestial 
breathings of the life of God, — since it started, 
an infant in the faith, — and yet that poor 
and feeble childhood remains. They are yet 
minors in holiness, have not yet come to 
age, nor assumed the full rights and pri- 
vileges of a heavenly citizen. "What were 



PEOGRESS. 49 

faults of character, blemishes, sins, at the 
commencement of their Christian life, are 
faults still. Then impatient, irritable, cen- 
sorious, avaricious, the same imperfections 
now tarnish their character. Is it possible, 
then, that their conversion was genuine ? 
Has the life of Grod ever been commenced in 
their souls? We tremble when we think 
of the reply that divine truth constrains to 
be made to these inquiries. 



50 THE CLOSER WALK. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

PEOGEESS IN HOLINESS — HOW IT IS EVINCED. 

" Religion in its rise interests ns almost exclusively about 
ourselves ; in its progress, it engages us about the welfare 
of our feUow- creatures ; in its more advanced stages, it 
animates us to consult on all things, and to exalt to tbe 
utmost of our power, the power of God." — Rev. C. Simeok. 

" For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed aft«r a 
godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what 
clearing of yourselves." — 2 CoR. 7: 11. 

LL life has its infallible marks of de- 
'velopment, its indices, which, when- 
ever they clearly appear, prove incontro- 
vertibly that it is passing on from infancy 
to maturity. In the animal world, this is, 
generally, an enlargement of physical pro- 
portion ; in the vegetable, the same fact is 
conjoined with others more specific and 
peculiar. The blade of corn manifests its 
growth by the ear that is gradually formed 




PEOGEESS IN HOLINESS. 51 

upon it; the wheat, by its bearded head; 
the plant, by the unfolding of its buds ; and 
the tree, by the mellowing of its fruit. 

We are rarely in doubt as to whether 
life, in any of these various forms, is really 
in the process of development. In no case, 
indeed, is its unfolding so manifest as to be 
palpable to our senses at the very moment 
of its occurrence. We do not see the tree 
grow ; nor does the flower-bud burst into 
full bloom the instant that we gaze upon it. 
The lapse of time seems to be essential to 
the perception of growth. 

Precisely thus is it with the life of God 
in the soul. It has its indices, — suited, of 
course, to its internal and spiritual charac- 
ter, — yet equally definite and marked with 
those which distinguish other growths, and, 
like them, clearly perceptible at intervals 
more or less distant. What these are, it is 
our present purpose to endeavor to show. 
Progress in holiness, how is it evinced ? 



62 THE CLOSER TVALK. 

Our blessed Lord indicates one way, in 
that oft-repeated declaration, "Whosoever 
exalteth himself shall be abased; and he 
that humbleth himself shall be exalted." 
Great piety is like great knowledge, always 
connected with humility. Men go down in 
their own esteem, as in character they ap- 
proach the divine. He who has the clear- 
est apprehension of God has the most truth- 
ful and vivid sense of his own imperfec- 
tions. ^^I have heard of thee," said Job, 
" by the hearing of the ear ; but now mine 
eye seeth thee : wherefore I abhor myself, 
and repent in dust and ashes." 

The Apostle Paul, when he was first con- 
verted, said, ^^I am not worthy to be called 
an apostle ;" when he had made greater pro- 
gress in holiness, he said, ^^ I am the least 
of all saints ;" but just before he died, when 
his views of heaven were brightest and his 
knowledge of himself the clearest, he ex- 



PEOaRESS IN HOLINESS. 53 

claimed, '^I am the chief of sinners."* 
Eliphaz, Job's friend, uttered many an un- 
wise, and even untruthful, sentiment, in his 
discourses to the patriarch ; but this saying 
is not among them : ^^ When men are cast 
down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting 

up:' 

As believers progress in holiness, their 
religious emotionSj also, become more dis- 
interested. In the religious life of a young 
convert every thing is personal and sub- 
jective. His thoughts are mainly upon 
himself, and he is conscious of little else 
save his own sinfulness and the redemption 
which is in Christ Jesus. Even those rap- 
turous feelings of gratitude and adoration 
sometimes felt by the youthful believer, and 
which the older disciple of Christ longs after 
when he exclaims, 

" Oh for the blessedness I knew 
When first I saw the Lord !" 

* Voices of the Night, p. 180. 
6* 



64 THE CLOSER WALK. 

are, to a great extent, occasioned by a view 
of tlie grace of God as manifested in his sal- 
vation. 

But this absorption of thought upon self 
cannot long continue if the soul advance in 
the divine life. Personal interests provided 
for, and personal anxieties abated, the be- 
liever comes more and more out of himself. 
The chief characteristic of his piety be- 
comes its ohjectiveness. He delights in the 
contemplation of Christ's character, in the 
study of His word, and in the examination 
of divine truth. 

A profound axiom of Christian experience 
is contained in the remark of a Scotch divine, 
'^ that one of the most unequivocal signs of 
ripeness of Christian character is a growing 
fondness for the doctrines of the gospel, as 
distinguished fi^om its precepts." In that 
period of mental repose which follows the 
first and more anxious years of the Chris- 
tian life, the believer extends the range of 



PEOGRESS IN HOLINESS. 65 

his meditations, and soars over the whole 
realm of moral truth. He looks backward 
as well as forward; and even those themes 
which in their logical order precede revela- 
tion have to him a special charm. 

It is often observed that a mature Chris- 
tian discipline invests the Old Testament 
with a peculiar interest, and finds its adoring 
contemplations naturally expressed in the 
imagery and language of the Song of 
Solomon, a book almost without meaning 
to many a young disciple. Of McCheyne, 
the Scotch divine, so remarkable for the 
richness and maturity of his Christian ex- 
perience, it is said that he had preached so 
often on the Canticles that at last he had 
scarcely left himself a single text of its 
"good matter" which had not been dis- 
coursed upon.* 

And with this is conjoined a desire, most 
intense and consuming, for the salvation of 

* McCheyne's Life, p. 375. 



66 THE CLOSER WALK. 

others. When Paul said to his countrymen, 
''I could wish that myself were accursed 
from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen 
according to the flesh," he was no novice in 
the school of Christ. Such disinterested- 
ness of religious emotion was the result of 
long culture. He could not, we are quite 
sure, have uttered such language when, in 
all the fervor of his '^ first love,'' he entered 
the city of Damascus. 

The great philanthropist Wilberforce, at 
a time when every energy of his being was 
absorbed in the effort to secure the abolition 
of the slave-trade, was asked by a friend if 
he had not been neglecting his personal 
prospects and endangering his soul. His 
magnanimous answer was : ^' I do not think 
about my soul. I have no time for thoughts 
of self. I have really forgotten all about 
my soul." It was when the disciples of 
Christ were but half baptized with His spirit, 
and before that prayer of their Master in 



PEOGEESS IN HOLINESS. 57 

their behalf was offered, ''Sanctify them 
through thy truth/' that they proposed to Him 
the selfish inquiry, ''Lo, we have left all, and 
followed thee : what shall we have therefore ?" 
In a shipwreck, when a man tossed upon 
the angry bosom of the waters first feels 
that he has found an object, clinging to 
which he may be saved, all is anxiety. 
He thinks of nothing but of that object's 
stability, strength, and capacity to save him. 
He even forgets that others are all around 
him sinking in the waves. So soon, however, 
as this question of personal safety is an- 
swered, — so soon as he finds himself secure, 
— his heart is instantly filled with earnest de- 
sires for the salvation of others. Indeed, 
the man now forgets himself, and is wholly 
absorbed in concern and effort for others. 
Thus is it with the true believer. At the 
commencement of his religious life, we can- 
not deem it strange that it is of himself that 
he thinks ; but should it be so always ? His 



68 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

feet firmly planted upon the Eock of Ages, 
should not his deepest concern now be for 
the vast multitude who are all around him 
sinking beneath the waves of sin? Such 
must it be whenever there is any real 
growth in grace. Progress in holiness has 
as one of its indices an increasing disinte- 
restedness of religious emotion. 

And to this we may add, as still another 
infallible test of Christian advancement, 
increased deadness to the world. As a 
power for evil, the love of the world has 
not lost all its influence even upon the truly 
regenerate soul. It is to professed Chris- 
tians that the command is addressed, ^^Be 
not conformed to this world, but be ye trans- 
formed by the renewing of your mind." 
The young disciple of Christ is not, indeed, 
in doubt which to choose as his portion, the 
world or his Saviour; nor does he suppose 
that this earth can make him happy without 
the blessing and smile of God; but, then, 



PEOaRESS IN HOLINESS. 59 

there are in this world so many fair and 
bright and beautiful things to fill his fancy, 
and to awaken hopes of enjoyment, that he 
is very prone to be too highly pleased with 
the goodly show. The world has still too fast 
hold upon him. It intrudes upon his closet, 
pollutes his Sabbaths, and sometimes per- 
suades him to drink of its tasteless streams, 
when he ought to have quenched his thirst 
with the sweet waters that flow from Christ, 
the living Fountain. It never, indeed, con- 
verts him into an apostate and treacherous 
Judas; but it does sometimes make him a 
fickle and foolish Demas. 

But as the Christian advances in the 
divine life, this love of the world dies, and 
hence the liability of being drawn away by 
it into sin lessens. The old nature more 
and more thrown off, and the new nature 
more and moi'e put on, the believer becomes 
more and more disengaged from the passions 
and affections of earth. As faith sheds on 



60 THE CLOSER WALK. 

his path the light of heaven, he sees more 
clearly the emptiness and vanity of those 
glittering bubbles, with which the world 
allures and decoys. Its losses affect him 
less painfully, and he receives its prosperity 
with a more sober and subdued spirit. 

But what is true of this generic form of 
sin is equally true of all the specific acts 
which it includes. As the soul goes onward 
and upward in the divine life, it marks 
every step of its progress by its increased 
power to meet and overcome all temptations 
to sin. 

The young Christian is frequently con- 
quered by his spiritual foes. His relapses 
into sin are numerous. Ignorant to a great 
extent of the wiles of the adversary, he is 
often unable successfully to resist them. 
Clad in the whole armor of God, he yet 
wields so unskilfully his weapons as, in 
many an evil day, to be overcome. More- 
over, the whole power of the great law of 



PROGRESS IN HOLINESS. 61 

hahit is, with a young Christian, against his 
successful resistance of temptation. He is 
accustomed to do evil ; and hence it is very 
hard for him to do good. 

It is an interesting fact, in illustration of 
this remark, that Bunyan, in his '^ Pilgrim's 
Progress," — a book which, as Dr. Arnold 
says, '' seems to be a complete reflection of 
Scripture, with none of the rubbish of the 
schools mixed with it," — ^has made Christian 
yield to one of the first temptations that 
beset him, after at the cross he lost the 
burden of his sins. How plaintive is the 
language of his penitence ! ^' Oh, wretched 
man that I am, that I should sleep in the 
daytime! that I should sleep in the midst 
of difficulty! that I should so indulge the 
flesh, as to use that rest for ease to my 
flesh, which the Lord of the hill hath 
erected only for the relief of the spirits of 
pilgrims !" 

And this liability to sin on the part of 



62 THE CLCSZH WALE!. 

young Ci r : ~ : : :: ? : ? e ? ^: e : : ally in the direc- 
tion, eitiier of their natural defects, or of 
their previously formed sinfal habits. Every 
individual has vulnerable points in his cha- 
racter. There are sins which — ^in Scriptural 
language — ecLsily bese: him, and it is to their 
practice that Satan particularly allures. 
Prone, before our conversion, to anger, envy, 
pride, covetousness, our greatest danger 
afterwards is in their indulgence. It was 
the natural self-confidence of Peter, his ar- 
dent and impulsive disposition, never pro- 
perly disciplined into restraint before he 
became a disciple of Christ, that in that 
base denial of his Master reappeared to dis- 
honor his apostleship. 

Advancing, however, in holiness, these 
relapses into sin become more and more in- 
frequent. The mature disciple meets tempt- 
ation with far more steadiness and success 
than the young convert. " Using the wea- 
pons of his warfare, the believer acquires 



PEOGBESS IN HOLINESS. 63 

the art of using them better/' and, watch- 
ing the wiles of the adversary, he learns 
how more skilfully to escape from them. 
Natural defects of moral character are 
eliminated as the soul progresses in the 
divine life, and the power of sinful habits 
is broken. Petulance softens into amiable- 
ness, envy into brotherly-kindness, pride 
into humility, and covetousness into a large 
and generous beneficence. 

And this mark of Christian progress, how 
simple ! We can hardly mistake it if we 
would. It calls us to a plain reckoning of 
our sins. It bids us tell their number. It 
exhorts us to compare our present with our 
past sinful relapses. It inquires whether 
our obedience is becoming more perfect, and 
whether the imperfections of our character 
are being gradually eradicated. Provoca- 
tions to malevolence, pride, anger, impurity, 
do we now as frequently yield to them as 



64 THE CLOSEB WALK. 

we once did? It is impossible, if we are 
really growing in grace. 

But there is one other evidence of Chris- 
tian progress that we must not fail to notice. 
When the pious Eutherford, in writing to 
a friend, subscribed himself ^^a man borne 
down and hungry and waiting for the mar- 
riage-supper of the Lamb/' we all instinct- 
ively feel that, if these words were truthful 
and honest, his soul must, in the maturity 
of its graces, have been nearly ripe for 
heaven. 

To the fear of dying, the unregenerate 
man is all his lifetime in bondage; and, 
though one of the objects of Christ's incar- 
nation is to deliver His people from this thral- 
dom, yet full and complete liberty in this 
particular is, perhaps, never the immediate 
result of true conversion. It is ^^perfect 
love' that '^ caste th out fear.'' It is not 
until the believer feels some assurance of 



PEOGRESS IN HOLINESS. 65 

the personal love of Christ, and until the 
great objects of his faith begin to assume 
in his vision the aspect of substantial reali- 
ties, that he views the close of his life with 
calm, and even joyful, expectations. The 
attractions of heaven increase as the Chris- 
tian in the holiness of his character ap- 
proaches it, and as the strong ties that once 
bound him to earth are severed. 

We should think it almost strange to hear 
a young Christian, as expressing his own 
desires, singing that familiar hymn, 

" Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! 

Would God I were in thee ! 

Oh that my sorrows had an .end, 

Thy joys that I might see !" 

A better prayer for such a believer would be 
those words of David : ^' Oh, spare me, that 
I may recover strength, before I go hence 
and be no more." Yet that old hymn beau- 
tifully and truthfully expresses the feelings 
of a mature disciple. 

6* 



66 THE CLOSZB WALK. 

That men sometimes welcome death for 
reasons very different from this, cannot, in- 
deed, be denied. There ai'e in society dis- 
appointed and restless worldlings, men so 
'^whipped of their own guilty conscience" 
as to feel that life is a bui^den and earnestly 
to desii^e that they might lay it down. Such 
are all suicides ; and to this class belong a 
much larger number, who, with the same 
inwai'd unrest, are deterred from the out- 
ward crime only by '^ the dread of something 
after death." 

But between such a desii'e to depart from 
earth, and that which characterizes the ma- 
ture disciple of Christ, how striking the con- 
trast ! There is with the latter nothing of 
a chafed, vexed, or murmuring spirit, but 
all is sweet, quiet, and meek. The longing 
for death of a ripened saint is not so much 
to escape the sufferings and disappointments 
of life, as to be fiee from its temptations 



PEOGRESS IN HOLINESS. 67 

and sins. He wishes not so mucli to get 
away from himself as continually annoyed 
by a troublesome companion dwelling in his 
own bosom, as to get near to a friend whom, 
having not seen, he yet loves with an affec- 
tion all-absorbing and supreme. 



68 THE CLOSER WALK. 



CHAPTEE V. 



SANCTIFICATIOK — HOW ATTAINED. 



•• Abede in me ! tliere liave been moments pure 
Wlaen I tiave seen tliy face and felt tby power ; 
Tlien evil lost its grasp, and passion, hustied. 
Owned ttie divine enciiantment of the iiour. 
These were but seasons,— beautiful and rare : 

Abede in me ! and they shall ever be. 

1 pray thee now fulfil my earnest prayer : 

Come and abide in me, and I in thee." 

Mrs. H. B. Stowe. 

^'Worh out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 
For it is God whicli ivorketh in you both to will and to do 
of his good pleasure." — Philippians 2 : 12, 13. 



^\) VITAL union with the Lord Jesus 
^^Tv Christ is essential to all true sanctifi- 
cation. '^He that abideth in me, and I in 
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: 
for without me ye can do nothing." All holi- 
ness of life that is not the fruit of such a 
union is mere self-righteousness. It is a 
specious counterfeit of sanctification. It is 



SANCTIFICATION — HOW ATTAINED. 69 

the result of self-culture, and, however beau- 
tiful it may cause any character to appear 
to the world, can impart no charm to it in 
the eye of God. 

For the general correctness of their ex- 
ternal life, and their scrupulous observance 
of the divine law, the Pharisees received 
from men their reward. Their fellow-coun- 
trymen honored them as strict religionists. 
They were charmed as they listened to their 
long prayers offered at street-corners, or as 
they beheld their broad phylacteries and 
ceaseless tithe-paying; but, as these excel- 
lences had no connection with the source of 
all life and power in God, — were not the true 
expressions of their inward condition, but 
were to them just as that fruit would be to 
a tree that was fastened to its branches by 
outside and artificial ligaments, — so Christ 
saw nothing to admire in their life, but, on 
the contrary, expressly declared to His dis- 
ciples, '^That except your righteousness 



70 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes 
and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into 
the kingdom of heaven." 

The gracious exercise of the soul that is 
the indispensable condition of this union, is 
faith. Detaching us from the first Adam, 
it unites us to the second. It is this grace 
which ingrafts us into Christ. Faith brings 
Jesus into the soul, and makes him who was 
just now a child of Satan a member of God's 
household. '^ But as many as received Him, 
to them gave He power to become the sons of 
God, even to them that believe on His name." 

And as faith institutes this union between 
Christ and the believer, so does it continue 
it. Jesus abides in the soul no longer than 
the soul truly believes in Him ; and could 
it not be said of this grace, '^ and now 
abideth faith," then could we, once in Christ, 
be afterwards entirely separated from Him. 
When Paul, speaking of his new life, asserts 
its origin to be ^'by the faith of Jesus 



SANCTIFICATION — HOW ATTAINED. 71 

Christ/' it is to the same cause that he 
attributes its continuance : — '' And the life 
which I now live in the flesh I live by the 
faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and 
gave Himself for me." 

The agency by which this work is per- 
formed is the Holy Spirit. He produces in 
the soul that grace which is the condition of 
its union to Christ. Faith is the gift of 
God. '' Except a man be born of water and 
of the Spiritj he cannot enter into the king- 
dom of God." And, this grace once pro- 
duced, it is by the same almighty powei 
that it is ever afterwards nourished and 
maintained. '' Grieve not the Holy Spirit 
of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day 
of redemption." '^ Ye are washed, ye are 
sanctified, ... by the Spirit of our God." 

The instrument employed by the Spirit 
in the accomplishment of this work is the 
truth. This is the sharp and two-edged 
sword by which He slays the enmity of the 



72 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

human heart to God, and the fire and the 
hammer by which He breaks to pieces its 
flinty hardness. '' Faith cometh by hear- 
ing." It is by the truth that men are led to 
see that they need conversion. They thus 
learn how their character appears in the sight 
of God, what is required of them, and how 
fearful the consequences must be if they 
refuse to obey. Indeed, if it is through the 
instrumentality of motives, rendered effect- 
ive by the Spirit, that the sinner is converted, 
we cannot conceive how these can lie before 
the mind and be seen or estimated by it, 
save in the form of truth. And precisely 
thus is it with our sanctification. The truth 
of God is the instrument by which it is 
accomplished. ^' Sanctify them through thy 
truth: thy word is truth." 

To the inquiry, then, placed at the head 
of this chapter. How is sanctification at- 
tained ? we reply : By the Spirit of God, 
working through the truth upon a soul that 



SANCTIFICATION — HOW ATTAINED. 73 

by faith has been vitally united to Christ. 
It is God's work, not man's. 

But does this supersede the necessity of 
our own personal activity ? Because we are 
sanctified by the Holy Ghost, may we give 
ourselves up to spiritual indolence*? Are 
we to expect that, irrespective of our own 
exertions, God will pour into our hearts the 
grace of sanctification, or fill them with His 
love, just as summer showers fill lifeless 
cisterns? When a soul has once yielded 
itself to Christ, is it true that He, in some 
unrevealed way and without any of its co- 
operation, gradually assimilates it to Him- 
self, so that, in full confidence that He will 
carry on the work to its completion, the 
Christian may dismiss all trouble about his 
present imperfect state ? 

In reply to these inquiries, let this fact be 
observed. Believers are everywhere in the 
sacred Scriptures solemnly commanded to 
grow in grace. They are uniformly ad- 



74 THE CLOSER WALK. 

dressed as if the work of Christian progress 
were to be done by themselves alone ; and in 
no case is it intimated that they are under 
no obligation to advance in holiness unless 
assisted by some higher influence. '^ Griving 
all diligence, add to your faith." ^'As ye 
have received of us how ye ought to walk 
and to please God, so abound more and 
more." ^/ Be ye perfect, even as your Father 
which is in heaven is perfect." 

Surely it cannot be that our activities are 
so positively commanded in a work in which 
we are in fact to be perfectly passive. When 
God commands men to turn from their sins, 
or to repent, or to love Him, have they 
nothing to do ? Are they to wait, and make 
no efforts to obey these divine injunctions, till 
they are sure that the Holy Spirit is striving 
with them? The charge brought against 
the Jews by the prophet was, '^ They will 
not frame their doino-s to turn unto their 

o 

God." They would not place themselves in 



SANCTIFICATION — HOW ATTAINED. 75 

such an attitude as to receive the divine 
assistance. And does not the charge hold 
with equal force against those who, com- 
manded to abound more and more in all the 
graces of the Spirit, sit down in idleness, 
expecting that God will do the work for 
them ? 

But, further to show how essential are 
the believer's own activities in the work of 
his sanctification, notice what was true, in 
this particular, of Bible saints. 

In the great work of salvation no man 
ever had a more profound sense of his de- 
pendence than Paul. To resist a tempta- 
tion, to conquer a lust, or to perfect a grace, 
he knew that his life must link itself, through 
a Mediator, to Grod. It was not only wisdom 
and righteousness that Christ of God was 
made unto him, but sanctification and re- 
demption. Indeed, looking at Paul's Christian 
life, we never see him attempting any thing 
in his own strength. One divine form is 



76 THE CLOSER WALK. 

ever walking by his side, and one sure and 
mighty hand is ever leading, blessing, and 
delivering him. 

Yet, at the same time, how intense was 
his personal activity ! Conscious that all his 
help must come from God, and that he could 
not take a single step in the divine life with- 
out His gracious assistance, he still acted 
as if the whole work was within the circle 
of his own ability, and as if every thing 
depended upon his own exertions. How 
remarkable his language ! We could not 
frame words more expressive of strong and 
personal wrestlings after internal purity: 
" I keep under my body, and bring it into 
subjection : lest that by any means, when I 
have preached to others, I myself should be 
a cast-away." ^^ Brethren, I count not my- 
self to have apprehended : but this one thing 
I do, forgetting those things which are 
behind, and reaching forth unto those things 
which are before, I press toward the mark 



SANOTIFICATION — HOW ATTAINED. 77 

for the prize of the high calling of God in 
Christ Jesus/' " I have fought a good fight. 
I have finished my course. I have kept the 
faith." 

Surely, then, that man's religion is not 
Pauline who thinks to go on to perfection 
without personal stragglings and resolves, 
fastings and prayers. Placing, by faith, his 
soul in the hands of Christ, '^ as clay in the 
hands of the potter, to be moulded by Him 
into His own heavenly image," Paul had no 
idea that by this act he absolved himself 
either from the necessity or duty of working 
out his own salvation with fear and trem- 
bling. 

From those modern religious quietists 
who would teach us such a doctrine, the 
great Apostle of the Gentiles was at the 
antipodes. '' Let us labob," is his lan- 
guage, ''to enter into that rest." And with 
this exhortation how perfectly do the words 
of Peter — the Apostle of the Circumcision — 

7« 



78 THE CLOSER WALK. 

agree ! ^^ Brethren, give diligence to make 
vour callinar and election sure." 

It would likewise be opposed to all tke 
analogies of life — the figure so generally 
employed in the sacred Scriptures to illus- 
trate the progress of religion in the soul — to 
suppose that it had no appropriate culture. 
Every plant, and tree, and animal organ- 
ism, is indeed dependent for its development 
upon its own inherent and internal vitality. 
It grows only because it is possessed of life. 
And hence, in looking upon any mature 
development in animated nature, — a stately 
oak, for example, that for centuries had been 
in the slow process of growth, — it would be 
perfectly right to say that it was aU but the 
simple unfolding of its seed's infant life. 

'•■ The pnlpy acorn, ere it swells, contains 
The oak's vast branches in its milky veins, 
Each ravelled bud, fine film, and fibre-line, 
Traced with nice pencil on the small design." 

But, while this is true, is it not equally 
true that for the development of either 



SANCTIFIOATION — HOW ATTAINED. 79 

vegetable or animal life, culture is indispen- 
sable? Will a seed, though living ^ grow, 
irrespective of its external circumstances? 
Is it a matter of no moment to the future 
unfoldings of a grain of wheat whether it 
finds a home in the soil of some fruitful 
field where it will enjoy the sunshine and 
rain of heaven, or is buried in the cere- 
ments of some Egyptian mummy ? 

The essential conditions of growth in 
nature are, then, clearly two, the existence 
of life, and its appropriate culture. To se- 
cure an abundant harvest, we must first have 
the buried seed-corn, and then to it must be 
given air, water, sunlight, wind, and gene- 
rally the diligent labor of the husbandman. 

Thus is it with the life of God in the soul. 
Though all progress in religion is God's 
work, and though it may be truly said of 
sanctification that it is the simple outgrowth 
of the believer's new life in Christ, yet cul- 
ture is, at the same time, appropriate and 



80 THE CLOSEE VTALS!. 

necessary to it. It is to be sought by a 
direct process. There are means for its 
attainment, providential instruments that 
foster it, divine helps that favor it, and a 
method to be employed in order to secure it. 

It only remains now that we should in- 
quire what that culture is. And in speak- 
ing of the truth as the instrunfient of sanc- 
tification, we have already indicated the 
general method. A Christian who would 
grow in grace must diligently seek to knma 
the divine will. He must "buy the truth, 
and sell it not," " cry after knowledge, and 
lift up his voice for understanding; seek her 
as silver, and search for her as for hid 
treasures." 

We often speak, in common language, of 
the reading of the Bible, prayer, and attend- 
ance upon the services and ordinances of 
Gods house, as "means of grace;" and we 
do so justly. These are the instrumentali- 
ties by which the Holy Spirit increases holi- 



SANCTIFICATION — HOW ATTAINED. 81 

ness in us. and tlie fixed channels through 
which the grace of sanctification flows into 
our souls. '^ Thy word/' says the Psalmist, 
*'have I hid in mine heart, that I might not 
sin against thee." '^They that wait upon 
the Lord shall renew their strength." '^For 
my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is 
drink indeed." 

In the Bible all the graces of the Spirit 
find their proper aliment. The word feeds 
faith by setting before it the free grace of 
God, His rich promises and His almighty 
power to perform them all; repentance ^ by 
making the vileness and deformity of sin 
more distinct and impressive; love, by open- 
ing to our view more and more of the ex- 
cellence and loveliness of Christ; hope, by 
revealing to us God's abundant compassion 
and grace; and zeal, by that eternal inherit- 
ance of glory which it assures us awaits all 
the faithful in heaven. Of all true sanctifi- 
cation the Bible is the text-book; and one 



82 THE CLOSEE WALK!. 

might as well expect to become a historian 
without reading history, as to attain to 
saintliness of Christian character with God's 
word neglected. 

And the same invigoration of all the 
graces of the Spirit is accomplished by 
'prayer. An affecting commerce between 
heaven and earth, and the true antitype of 
that ladder which Jacob saw in the vision 
of Bethel, prayer, as it ascends to God, 
brings down from Him both light to under- 
stand truth and strength to obey it. And 
though the petition we offer may in itself 
include but a single spiritual gift, yet in 
its answer is contained the increase of all 
Christian excellences. The prayer, ''Lord, 
increase our faith," strengthens hope and 
love and patience and zeal, and the whole 
sisterhood of the Christian graces. 

Moreover, in the divine economy prayer 
is a condition without which God has not 
promised to bestow a single blessing upon 



SANCTIFICATION — HOW ATTAINED. 83 

men. How vain, then, the expectation of 
growing in grace, while the life is prayer- 
less! We can have fellowship with Jesus 
Christ only as we diligently seek Him. 

Of the Church, with its Sabbath services 
and simple though sublime ordinances, the 
tendency to produce the same result is ob- 
vious. Indeed, what is the Church, but a 
house built for the new maUj a place in 
which the peculiar wants of a babe in Christ 
are especially provided for, where he may be 
sheltered, watched over, fed, and where, by 
diligent care, he may, through the grace of 
God, in time grow up to a vigorous Chris- 
tian manhood ? 

In the journey to heaven the Church is to 
every believer just what the '^ Palace Beau- 
tiful" was to Christian in Bunyan's allegory, 
^' a house built by the Lord of the hill, for 
the relief and security of pilgrims." It is 
the home of '^ Discretion, Prudence, Piety, 
and Charity," sisters whose discourse is 



~ 84 THE CLOSER ^VALK. 

sweet and profitable. It has a " table fur- 
nished with fat things, and wine that is well 
refined." It is faU of ''rarities; has an 
armory complete with aU manner of furni- 
ture, which the Lord has provided for pil- 
grims/' And from it, ^^ if the day he clear,'' 
you may even behold the " Delectable Moun- 
tains." 



SANCTIFICATION — THEOUGH SUFFEEINa. 85 



CHAPTER VI. 

SANCTIFICATION — THEOUGH SUFFEEING. 

•• Th.e heart that God breaks with affliction's rod. 
Oft, like the flower when stricken by the storm, 
Biaea from earth, more steadfastly to tiom 
Itself to heaven." 

" For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, 
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory." — 2 Cor. 4: 17. 

^EW facts are more remarkable or 
noteworthy in the Bible than the 
feelings which it commands Christians to 
cherish in the experience of earthly trials. 
When exposed to severe temptation, per- 
secuted, defamed, beggared in property, or 
deprived of health and kindred, we are 
wont to regard the event as calamitous and 
a just occasion for grief. Philosophy may, 
indeed, in such circumstances, tell us that the 
affliction is unavoidable, and bid us dry up 




86 THE CLOSER WALK. 

our tears, for the reason that they cannot 
bring back to us our lost comforts; but 
further than this it never goes. The Stoics 
taught that a man was wise and advanced 
towards perfection in proportion as he ap- 
proached a state of profound apathy. The 
sum of man's duty with respect to himself 
was, in their opinion, to subdue his passions 
of joy, sorrow, hope, and fear. When Ser- 
vius Sulpicius, the friend of the renowned 
Cicero, sought to comfort him in the death 
of his beloved daughter TuUia, he asked, 
^' Is it possible that a mind long exercised in 
calamities so truly severe should not be- 
come totally callous and indifferent to every 
event?'' 

How striking the contrast between this 
teaching of an undevout philosophy and the 
inspired injunctions of God's word! ^^My 
brethren, count it all py when ye fall into 
divers temptations." ''Behold, we count 
them happy which endure." ''Blessed is 



SANCTIFICATIOK — THEOUGH SUFFEEINa. 87 

the man whom thou chastenest, Lord/' 
'^ Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, 
and persecute you, and shall say all manner 
of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Be- 
joice, and be exceeding glad!^ 

That these commands and exhortations 
are addressed to true helievers only^ and 
that they refer entirely to those afflictions 
and trials which God Himself brings upon 
them, it is of the greatest moment to notice. 
When men heedlessly run into danger, or 
purposely bring upon themselves affliction, 
these blessed passages of inspiration are to 
them wholly inapplicable. If God chasten 
us, it is our high privilege ^Ho rejoice," and 
in doing so we manifest the strength of our 
confidence in Him; but if our flagellation 
be, like that of many heathen or Popish 
devotees, self-inflicted, it is the most arrant 
presumption to suppose that we have any 
reason for joy. 

But the inspired passages already quoted, 



88 THE CLOSER WALK. 

while they exhort Christians to rejoice in 
tribulation^ indicate in their context the 
reason for the command : '^ Knowing this, 
that the trying of your faith worketh pa- 
tience. But let patience have her perfect 
work, that ye may be perfect and entire, 
wanting nothing." In the immediate en- 
durance itself of any earthly affliction there 
cannot, of course, be any element of joy. 
'^ Now no chastening for the present seemeth 
to be joyous, but grievous." The occasion 
for rejoicing is mainly in its final result: 
'^ Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the 
peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them 
which are exercised thereby." 

The sanctification, then, of believers is, 
under God, promoted by their earthly trials ; 
and this is the reason why in all the sor- 
rows of life they are commanded to rejoice. 
^^ Falling tears wash the affections v/hite;" 
heaving sighs break the power of earthly 
temptation ; bodily pain strengthens our as- 



SANCTIFICATIOK^— THEOUGH SUFEEEINa. 89 

pirations after heavenly happiness ; and out 
of disappointed hopes, and from sick-beds 
and funerals, we come with our immortal 
strength renewed. Indeed, the trials and 
troubles of this life are but the active min- 
isters of God, ordained and employed by 
Him to discipline His people into independ- 
ence of this world and into a ripeness for 
immortality. 

^^ All sorrow ought to be home-sickness j^ 
says a German poet. It ought to fill Christ's 
pilgrim band with longings after rest in His 
likeness and bosom. And does it not? 
Should we desire to find an eminent exam- 
ple of piety, would we not say, with the de- 
vout McOheyne, '' Commend me to a bruised 
brother, a broken reed, a man of sorrows'' ? 
^^Is it not upon those jewels that Christ 
especially esteems, and means to make most 
resplendent, that He hath His tools oftenest ?" 

The celebrated master of Kugby, Dr. 
Arnold, had a sister who was a confirmed 

8* 



90 THE CLOSER ^ALK. 

invalid for twenty years. Upon her death, 
he thus portrayed her character, in a letter 
to Archbishop Whately : '' I never saw a 
more perfect instance of the spirit ' of power 
and of love and of a sound mind;^ intense 
love, almost to the annihilation of selfish- 
ness ; a daily martyrdom for twenty years, 
during which she adhered to her early- 
formed resolution of never talking about 
herself; . . . enjoying every thing lovely, 
graceful, beautiful, high-minded, whether 
in God's works or man's, with the keenest 
relish ; inheriting the earth to the very ful- 
ness of tha promise, though never leaving 
her crib nor changing her posture; and 
preserved through the very valley of the 
shadow of death from all fear or impatience, 
or from every cloud of impaired reason 
which might mar the beauty of Christ's 
Spirit's glorious work. May God grant that 
I might come but within one hundred de- 
grees of her place in glory!" 



SANCTIFICATION — THROUaH SUFFERING. 91 

But how is this great work of the be- 
liever's sanctification advanced by earthly- 
trials ? In the same way, we reply, that all 
life is made vigorous : — by being measured 
against competition; by resistance ; by stand- 
ing up against a power that was seeking to 
destroy it ; by wrestling with some antago- 
nistic force. How full of illustrations of 
this truth is every thing around us ! Behold 
that tree, beneath whose far-reaching shade 
the flocks repose ! It was a law of its being, 
impressed on the seed, that if left to itself 
it would steadily unfold its leaves and 
stretch out its branches. But such sturdi- 
ness and size it never could have attained in 
the enjoyment of a quiet and peaceful cul- 
ture. It was the fury of storms that gave it 
its present gigantic proportions and strength. 
Every blast of the tempest swaying its 
boughs loosened the soil in which it stood, 
and thus suffered its roots to thrust them- 
selves deeper into the earth ; while for every 



92 THE CLOSEPv Yr'ALK. 

new tendril that clasped its tiny fibres around 
the broken soil, it lifted higher into the air 
its branches. 

The human frame also, when free from 
disease, will grow to a certain fulness and 
stature. The child of luxury^ doomed to a 
slothful life, may yet have a manly form, 
but in each muscle and hmb there is a 
mightier energy, which labor alone can 
develop. When compared with the hus- 
bandman long inured to toil, or the wrestler 
who has toughened his sinews by their most 
vigorous use, he is weak and helpless. 

And thus is it even with national life. 
To become strong and vigorous, the discipline 
of occasional adversity seems to be essential. 
A people who, like Moab of old, are ^^at 
ease fi'om their youth, remain settled on 
their lees, and are not emptied from vessel 
to vessel," — that is, enjoy unbroken pros- 
perity and are shaken by no great over- 
turnings, — will, like Moab, retaining its old 



SANCTIFICATION — THEOUGH SUFFERINa. 93 

idolatry and barbarity, make no advance- 
ment in moral purity and excellence. China, 
for so many centuries a stranger to internal 
changes and convulsions, going on in the 
unbroken enjoyment of a certain kind of 
national prosperity, has now an effete civili- 
zation, and is absolutely hopeless as regards 
the promise of a regenerated future; ^' while 
England, four times conquered and three 
times deluged with civil war, converted, re- 
formed, and re-reformed, has finally, from, 
all these seeming disasters, emerged, in law, 
liberty, intelligence, and religion, one of the 
first and mightiest nations of the world." 

The principle is equally applicable in 
religion. The life of God in the soul, like 
all other life, is increased by being put 
forth, and strengthened by resistance. It 
does not reach its full maturity when nou- 
rished alone by prayer, meditation, and the 
reading of the word. Suffering^ in some 
of its many forms, must be introduced. 



94 THE CLOSEB WALK. 

The soul must have obstacles with which to 
contend, temptations to resist, and enemies 
with which to grapple and wrestle itself up 
into vigor. 

But, further to see how the trials of life 
promote the progress of the believer in 
holiness, we should observe what a great 
revealer of truth — the instrument, let it 
be remembered, of sanctification — they are. 
We often marvel that men are so ignorant of 
themselves. Savans, sometimes, in worldly 
learning, we think it strange that they can 
voluntarily remain without the least know- 
ledge of self. But in what school is this 
ignorance so rapidly dissipated as in that of 
affliction ? Joseph's brethren, when feeding 
upon the abundance of Canaan, did not feel 
that they were sinners in selling him into 
bondage. That unnatural crime was in their 
prosperity forgotten. But when, poor and 
friendless, they stood in the presence of a 
foreign king, trembling for their lives, it 



SANCTIFICATION — THROUaH SUFFERING. 95 

was remembered ; and, despite the long in- 
terval between the sin and the sorrow, 
something constrained them in a moment 
to link the two together: ''"We are verily- 
guilty concerning our brother." And how 
many afflicted souls are constrained to re- 
peat for themselves a similar confession ! 
Between physical suffering and moral evil, 
men instinctively feel that the connection is 
indissoluble. 

"What an impressive teacher, also, of our 
personal frailty and dependence is affliction ! 

When a man is in perfect health, — his 
sinews knit in strength and his nerves all 
strung harmoniously, — it is a very hard 
thing for him to believe that '' his breath is 
in his nostrils,'' that ''he is crushed before 
the moth," and that any moment his earthly 
tabernacle may be taken down. Indeed, in 
such statements he has no real faith; and 
hence all appeals to a religious life founded 
upon them are almost useless. But let now 



96 THE CLOSER WALK. 

sickness and sorrow come, and these truths 
are instantly realized. The man feels that 
he may be at the very threshold of the 
eternal Judge; and every motive of self- 
interest cries aloud to him for preparation. 

The pious Eutherford, in a letter to a 
friend, speaking of some of the ways by 
which he might grow in grace, says : ^' Per- 
suade yourself that the King is coming. 
Eead His letter sent before Him, Behold, I 
come quickly. Wait with the wearied night- 
watch for the breaking of the eastern sky, 
and think that you have not a morrow." 
And with the same considerations did the 
apostles and early preachers of Christianity 
frequently exhort their hearers to increased 
watchfulness. '^ The end of all things is at 
hand : be ye therefore sober, and watch unto 
prayer." ^' Be ye also patient; . . . for the 
coming of the Lord draweth nigh." ''This 
I say, brethren, the time is short." But 
these motives, to what can they appeal when 



SANCTIFICATION — THEOUaH SUFFERINa. 97 

life has been all unclouded sunshine? Can 
such a man realize that his very next step 
may be into eternity ? 

But it is not of ourselves only that the 
trials of life instruct us. They reveal like- 
wise the truth with regard to this world. 

When in the enjoyment of an unvaried 
prosperity men look out upon this world, it 
oftentimes seems to them almost like a 
happy island of the blest, — an elysium, — a 
place upon which the sunshine of heaven 
rests, and whose inhabitants enjoy perennial 
bliss. That happiness which their immortal 
nature demands, they fancy that this earth 
is able to impart ; and, should its wealth or 
honor be theirs, they think that they would 
not need to look elsewhere for enjoyment. 
But how is this spell broken and this delu- 
sion dissipated by the incursion of sorrow ! 
'^ To him whose ' trembling house of clay, lan- 
guor and disease invade,' what is the whole 
Pantheon of this world's idols worth?'' Can 



98 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

they tranquillize his mind, bribe disease to 
extract its sting, cause bim to forget bis 
pains, or even assure bim of ultimate re- 
covery ? We concede tbat ^'men of sorrow" 
are in danger of becoming cynical in tbeir 
views of tbis world, and may sometimes 
condemn and disapprove of wbat ought to 
be received with thanksgiving; but are they 
not right when they regard all its pleasures 
as unsatisfactory and perishable, and those 
men as foolish who pursue with an all- 
absorbing interest any mere earthly good ? 

A distinguished Christian scholar thus 
speaks of the influence upon his own mind 
of a severe and long-protracted illness: 
" Have you ever stood upon the banks of a 
mighty river, when its swollen waters were 
passing rapidly by, and watched the bubbles 
that successively rose and burst upon the 
agitated surface ? They came up and van- 
ished without noise, and to a cursory 
observer neither their appearance nor dis- 



SANCTIFICATION — THEOUQH SUFFEEING. 99 

appearance would have been noticed, so 
numerous were they upon the broad ex- 
panse. True, some of them were larger 
than others ; but to an eye that took in the 
whole surface they all appeared small, nor 
did the bursting of the largest arrest for a 
moment the stream that bore them onward. 
A just emblem, this, of the stream of human 
society as it appears upon a bed of sickness. 
Men then perceive that they are but the 
bubbles on its surface, and that when they 
disappear the great current will move on 
unaffected by the change/' 

But, in addition to this knowledge of our- 
selves and the world, what a teacher of the 
truth about God is earthly trial ! It both 
impels us to the study of His character, and 
gives us that disposition of mind without 
which all study of such a theme would be 
useless. 

When a man feels in any measure his 
own sinfulness, and realizes the emptiness 



100 THE CLOSER V^'ALK. 

of this world as the soul's portion, — lessons 
which, we have just seen, earthly afflictions 
teach, — it is to God that his thoughts are 
instantly turned. The great questions that 
relate to the soul's salvation then burden his 
spirit and absorb his attention. In God's 
plan of saving mercy he has then a personal 
concern, and upon its sufficiency, stability, 
and blessedness he is constantly meditating. 
As, when in nature every thing portends a 
storm, the careful sailor looks anxiously to 
his vessel and eagerly inquires as to the 
strength of her timbers and her capacity of 
endurance, — as at such a time he examines 
his ship with a particularity and diligence 
never before exercised, — so it is when God's 
people find themselves in ^^ manifold tempta- 
tions" that they are most apt prayerfully 
to inquire into ^^ the reason of the hope that 
is in them." 

And if for the successful acquisition of 
divine truth an humble and childlike dispo- 



SANCTIFICATION — THEOUGH SUFFEEINa. 101 

sition be necessary, what — apart from the 
direct influence of the Spirit of God — is 
better calculated to beget such a feeling 
than a deep experience of sorrow ? 

In beautiful harmony with this remark, 
and in striking confirmation of its truth, is 
the fact that so many of our best and most 
thorough theological treatises were written 
in periods of great trial to the Church. The 
martyred saints left behind them strong de- 
fences for the truth. All Protestants have 
in their creeds what are called doctrines of 
the Reformers ; and this term is used, not 
to indicate that these holy men of Grod were 
the discoverers of these doctrines, but be- 
cause, driven in the fierce conflicts with 
Eome to their proof, they placed them upon 
an immovable basis of Scripture and reason. 
Such men as Luther, Melanchthon, and 
Calvin, though living in an age when the 
weapons both of steel and logic were red with 
slaughter, were yet giants in the truth ; and, 



102 THE CLOSER WALK. 

mucli as we are wont in this nineteenth cen- 
tury to boast of our learning, we still fre- 
quently go back for wisdom to their writings. 

It is also to those English Puritans and 
Non-Conformists of the seventeenth century, 
whose homes were in exile or in dungeons, 
who endured living griefs and ^' heart-aches 
ever new/' that we are indebted for the most 
valuable works on practical religion that we 
now possess. It was then that Flavel un- 
covered the '' Fountain of Life,*' AUeine 
sounded the ^^ Alarm," Baxter uttered his 
thrilling '^Oall to the Unconverted," Howe^ 
discoursed about the ^'Eedeemer's Tears," 
and Bunyan wrote the '^ Pilgrim's Progress." 

Here, then, are some of the ways in which 
the believer's sanctification is promoted by 
his suffering. How happy for us all would 
an abiding faith in this truth be ! — the trials 
of life Grod's appointed ministers. His great 
assayers, to consume all the remains of sin 
in our heart. Alas that all Christians do 



SANCTIFICATION — THROUGH SUFFEEINQ. 103 

not lift themselves up into this sublime con- 
fidence ! Without it, we are necessarily, 
in the experience of any earthly affliction, 
impatient, peevish, restless, unhappy; with 
it, we can fully obey that divine injunction, 
" My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall 
into divers temptations." 

" ' Z know' is all the mourner saith : 
Knowledge by suffering entereth, 
And life is perfected by death ; 

" I am content to touch the brink 
Of pain's dark goblet, and I think 
My bitter drink a wholesome drink. 

" I am content to be so weak : 
Put strength into the words I speak, 
For I am strong in what I seek. 

" I am content to be so bare 
Before the archers ! everywhere 
My wounds being stroked by heavenly air. 

" ' Glory to God — to God !' he saith : 
Knowledge by suffering entereth, 
And life is perfected by death" 



104 THE CLOSEE WALK. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PAUL — AN EXAMPLE OF SAXCTIFICATION. 

" Plant in me a faitii secure and stable 

In tiie vrork wiiich. ttiou, O God, tiast planned. 
That no sneers, nor my ovm. doubts, be able 

To destroy tiie faitii vrh.erein I strand. 

Like St. Paul's, let ttiis be ray endeavor, 
Tliat tbe life I live I may live ever 
Tlirougn th.e faith, of Him who loved me so." 

" Howbeit, for this cause I obtained mercj, that in me 
first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a 
2:tattem to them which should hereafter believe on him to 
life everlasting." — 1 Tim. 1 : 16. 

^txWIiSTG- in previous chapters ex- 
amined, with some care, the general 
subject of the believer's sanctification ab- 
stractly, it is natural to expect that we 
should now seek, by ^ome forcible examples^ 
to illustrate it. And many considerations 
invite to such a course. Men are ordi- 
narily more impressed by what they see 




EXAMPLE OF PAUL. 105 

embodied in real life tlian by that wbich is 
described to them by mere words. They 
would study character as they do a fine art, 
not by the simple statement of formal defi- 
nitions and rules, but from actual specimens. 
Thus, the life of Washington is a more im- 
pressive teacher of patriotism, and that of 
Napoleon Bonaparte of ambition, than the 
most accurate and exhaustive analysis of 
either which any pen could write or tongue 
utter. 

In seeking, however, to present to our 
readers illustrious examples of the believer's 
sanctification, we at once encounter formi- 
dable difficulties. The work is hidden and 
internal. It is one of the soul; and all men 
do not 

" bear their "hearts 
Nailed on their breasts." 

The outward life does not infallibly indicate 
the soul's real condition. Character and re- 
putation are not always coincident. A reli- 



106 THE CLOSEE WALK, 

gious diary, however conscieniiously kept^ 
may still present us with an imperfect and 
one-sided view of the real man. And of 
religious biography it is certainly not too 
much to say that it is often more eulogistic 
than truthful. 

The possibility of mistake is, then, the 
difficulty that we feel in seeking to deduce 
our desired illustrations from the pages of 
uninspired church-history. Examples of 
sanctification drawn from this source and 
described as they there appear, we cannot 
always affirm that in our words there is no 
shadow of exaggeration. 

We have, indeed, no purpose in such a re- 
mark to weaken the faith of any in the emi- 
nent piety of those men whose memories the 
Church has enshrined in her deepest affi3C- 
tions, nor yet to deter any from both the 
study and the imitation of their character. 
Our aim is one very different from the dispa- 
ragement of these holy men. It is simply to 



EXAMPLE OF PAUL. 107 

exalt the inspired and the infallible above tlie 
uninspired and the fallible, and to lead men 
for the best illustrations of Christian pro- 
gress to go to the unerring word of God, 
rather than to human compositions. As 
examples of sanctifi cation, loe do well, it may 
be, to look at 'Hhe judicious Owen," ^Hhe. 
seraphic Howe," 'Hhe holy Baxter," or, in 
later times, to such men as Martyn, NefF, 
Payson, and McCheyne; but certainly we 
do better when Peter, James, John, and 
Paul are the characters we study. And is 
it not for the very purpose of enabling us to 
do this, that the Bible abounds in biography ? 
It is, then, to God's word, and to that 
alone, that we would look for examples of 
sanctification. And here, from the many 
holy men of whom we might speak, we se- 
lect one, Paul, the great Apostle of the 
Gentiles ; both because of the natural bold- 
ness of his character, which made his reli- 
gious experience vivid and strongly marked, 



108 



THE CLOSEE WALK. 



and because so mucli is said in the sacred 
Scriptures, not only of his external life, but 
of his internal and spiritual conflicts. 

In looking at Paul's character, what first 
impresses us is, doubtless, his wonderful 
activity. We think of him as a missionary 
before we think of him as a saint His 
external life, so full of almost superhuman 
labor, it is upon this that we first fix our 
eye. We remember the journeys he took, 
the discourses he preached, the volun- 
tary exile from friends that he endured, 
and the life amid strangers that he lived. 
Regarding men everywhere as exposed to 
the wrath of God, Paul sought to go every- 
where J that to all he might announce the glad 
tidings of salvation through Christ. But 
beneath all this outward activity was there 
not a diligent cultivation of inward piety, 
a wonderful and constant growth in grace, 
and a very remarkable subjugation of all 
the evil passions of the soul ? 



EXAMPLE OF PAUL. 109 

We propose, in replying to these inqui- 
ries, to attempt a somewhat careful analysis 
of Paul's character at three different epochs 
in his eventful life. 

It is in connection with the martyrdom 
of Stephen that Saul of Tarsus is first in- 
troduced to our notice in the sacred Scrip- 
tures. And though a Spanish painter, in a 
picture of that scene, represents him as 
walking by the martyr's side with melan- 
choly calmness and with an expression of 
countenance in striking contrast with the 
ferocity of the crowd, yet Luke, the in- 
spired historian, gives us a very different 
impression. Saul was in this persecution an 
eminent and active agent. He was a distin- 
guished member of that synagogue which, 
first '^disputing" with Stephen and unable 
to resist his wisdom and spirit, afterwards 
arraigned him, upon the charge of blas- 
phemy, before the Sanhedrin; and, doubt- 
less, in both the discussion and arraignment 

10 



110 THE CLOSER WALK. 

he bore a leading part. Moreover, it was 
'^at his feet" — as one peculiarly interested 
in Stephen's death — that 'Hhe witnesses laid 
down their clothes." 

But this single act of persecution was 
but the first unfolding of Saul's real spirit 
and temper. Elected — as is generally sup- 
posed — a member of the Sanhedrin soon 
after the martyrdom of Stephen, and possi- 
bly as a reward for the active part that he 
had taken against that heretic, the zeal 
evinced by him in conducting the persecu- 
tion was unbounded. He ^^ breathed out 
threatenings and slaughter against the dis- 
ciples of Christ;" he was '^ exceedingly mad 
against them;" '^he made havoc of the 
church;" he ^^shut up many of the saints 
in prison;" he ^^ compelled them to blas- 
pheme." That he might extend the reach 
of his persecuting power, the sanctuaries of 
domestic life were invaded. He ^'entered 
into every house;" and when in any cases 



EXAMPLE OF PAUL. Ill 

sentence was doubtful; he gave his vote 
against them. And not only did men thus 
suffer at his hands, but women also, — a fact 
three times repeated as a great aggravation 
of his cruelty. He was a '^blasphemer, a 
persecutor, and injurious.'' 

And doubtless it was for the simple pur- 
pose of giving to his persecuting spirit a still 
wider range that, leaving Jerusalem, where 
the Roman government would not suffer any 
thing like a systematic destruction of its 
subjects, he sought to go to Damascus, a 
city where — it being at that time under 
the control of Aretas, an Arabian prince — 
no principles of Roman tolerance would 
operate as a check on his murderous spite. 
What a character do these facts exhibit ! 
Was there ever a heart more full of pride 
and hate, uncharitableness and self-will ? 
How pitiless the man ! how relentless, how 
unsparing ! He was the prince of Inquisitors. 

But such the character of Saul, the proud 



112 



THE CLOSER WALK. 



Jewish Pharisee, when converted by the 
vision and the voice of Christ, on the way 
to Damascus, into Paul the Apostle; be- 
hold him at another and subsequent epoch 
in his life. 

After twenty years of the most consuming 
toil in the propagation of Christianity, and 
after suffering in his work every thing but 
death, sad tidings reached the apostle, with 
reference to one of the churches planted 
by his ministry. At Corinth, as in other 
places, emissaries had arrived from the 
Judaizers of Palestine; and as, in a commu- 
nity so civilized and refined, every attempt 
to insist upon circumcision would have been 
vain, they commenced a personal attack upon 
the apostle. They denied his apostleship, 
charged him with selfish and mercenary 
motives, accused him of egregious vanity, 
ridiculed his '^bodily presence," and affirmed 
that he was as vacillating in his teaching 
as in his practice. And the endeavors of 



EXAMPLE OF PAUL. 113 

these agitators to undermine Paul's influence 
were to a great extent successful. Many 
of his own children in the faith had their 
confidence in him and their love towards 
him greatly lessened. 

And then, too, of those who were still 
steadfast to the doctrines of the apostle, 
not a few, preferring the Alexandrian learn- 
ing with which Apollos had enforced his 
preaching to the simple and unadorned 
style of Paul, called themselves by his name, 
and looked with some measure of coldness 
upon their first teacher. 

How exceedingly trying such intelligence ! 
And in the manner in which it is received 
what a revelation of character must neces- 
sarily be made ! Its appeal is to the very 
strongest passions of human nature, to those 
which master the highest and noblest men, 
and which are the very last in any bosom 
to be successfully resisted. Its voice is to 
ambition, jealousy, and pride. And to such 

10* 



114 



THE CLOSER WALK. 



a man as Paul will it speak in vain ? Think 
of him just as a moment since we sketched 
his character, — as Saul the persecutor, — 
and would he have quietly borne such treat- 
ment ? Would he have suffered himself to 
be so defamed? Would he have had no 
jealous feelings towards the eloquent Apol- 
los, and no wounded pride at finding that 
his fame was fast being eclipsed ? We can- 
not doubt what Saul of Tarsus would have 
felt and said in such circumstances. 

But Paul the Apostle, how different! 
Bead his two epistles to this Church, written 
in view of the facts just referred to, and 
you will not find in them all one word of 
disappointed ambition, corroding jealousy, 
or wounded pride. Indeed, these passions 
— always of great strength in the unsancti- 
fied heart, and of peculiar power in Paul's 
natural disposition — seem now, by the grace 
of Grod, to have been perfectly subdued. His 
proud and passionate nature transformed 



EXAMPLE OF PAUL. 115 

by the divine Spirit, Paul, under these se- 
verest provocations, could, with David, say, 
''Surely I have behaved and quieted my- 
self as a child that is weaned of his mother : 
my soul is even as a weaned child." 

Had Paul any ambition to become a 
leader of a party in Corinth, and to make 
for himself a name? Did he feel that 
chagrin so natural to all men upon learning 
that his personal influence was declining 
among his old friends ? Not at all. His in- 
dividuality was entirely merged in the great 
cause he advocated. ''Who then is Paul, 
and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom 
ye believed? ... So then neither is he 
that planteth any thing, neither he that 
watereth." 

Of the constantly waxing power of Apol- 
los, and of the frequent unfavorable com- 
parisons made between him and the eloquent 
pupil of Alexandria, was Paul jealous? The 
fact that the affections of his converts were 



116 THE CLOSES VTALK. 

beginniDg to be transfeiTcd from him — an 
apostle — ^to an inferior, did it ruffle for a 
moment Ms tranquillity? Observe bis affec- 
tionate language in speaking of bis rival, 
and bis earnest desire tbat tbe Gorintbian 
Cburcb migbt again enjoy bis labors: "As 
toucbing our brother ApoUos, I greatly 
desired bim to come unto you witb the 
brethren." 

And, though charged with bigotry, ava- 
rice, and moral cowai'dice, though "his 
presence" was said "to be weak, and his 
speech contemptible," was his pride of- 
fended, and did he either shut himseK up in 
dignified silence, or with violent words con- 
demn such ingratitude? Surely, "if pride 
were ever venial, it had been here." But in 
vain will you look in either of his epistles for 
the least manifestation of it. On the con- 
trary, so great was his humility as to solicit 
from these very Corinthians a renewal of 
the love which had grown so cold : ''Be- 



EXAMPLE OF PAUL. 117 

hold, this third time I am ready to come 
to you. . . . And I will very gladly spend 
and be spent for you, though the more 
abundantly I love you, the less I be loved," 
That a conscientious sense of duty con- 
strained the apostle to utter against his 
wayward and erring brethren at Corinth 
many terrible denunciations, is indeed true ; 
but how striking the contrast between the 
spirit in which these were uttered, and 
that evinced by him at an earlier period of 
his life ! To Saul, the punishment of sus- 
pected heretics seemed to be a delight ; but 
to Paul, it was a strange work. The grace 
of God had changed the whole spirit of 
the persecutor. '^ Crucified with Christ," 
Paul had now put on His meekness and 
gentleness. His very threatenings were full 
of love. He grieved over the obstinacy of 
his opponents, and his own heart was pained 
by the denunciations that he was constrained 
to utter against others. How strange to 



118 THE CLOSEPw WALK. 

read^ from the very pen that once rejoiced 
to write the sentence of death against the 
disciples of Christ, such a sad lament as this 
over the necessity of administering stern 
rebukes to the erring ! ^^ For if I make 
you sorry, who is he that maketh me glad ?" 

But we pass from this second epoch in 
Paul's life to a third. 

After ten years more of toil and sacrifice 
for Christ, Paul is a prisoner at Pome. He 
had been in like circumstances before ; but 
now, either because of the peculiar severity 
of Nero's character, or from the nature of 
the accusations brought against him, his 
imprisonment was more severe. He was 
not only chained, as before, to his mili- 
tary guard, but treated ^'as a malefactor." 
The privilege of preaching the gospel, en- 
joyed in his first imprisonment, was now 
denied him. Friends visited him in his con- 
finement rarely, and only with the greatest 
difficulty; and to show any public sympathy 



EXAMPLE OF PAUL. 119 

with him was so perilous that in the first 
stage of his trial no Christian ventured to 
attend him. Nor was this sad prison-life 
of the apostle cheered by any hope of final 
acquittal. On the contrary, every thing 
assured him that it would terminate in his 
death. He saw continually before him, and 
at a very little distance, the doom of an 
unrighteous magistrate, and the glittering 
sword of a Eoman executioner. And with 
what feelings ? Did Paul complain that his 
lot was a hard one? Was he unsubmissive? 
A life so full of toil for Jesus, did the 
apostle feel that his death should have been 
peaceful, and that Elijah's chariot and horses 
were more his due than a bloody martyr- 
dom? The very reverse was true. 

According to the best Biblical chronolo- 
gists, it was mid-summer when Paul was led 
out from his prison in Rome to the place of 
execution, and but a few months previous 
— in the early spring — that he wrote in hit 



120 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

second epistle to Timothy, his well-beloved 
son in the Lord, that sublime strain of tri- 
umphant hope familiar to the memory of 
every Christian : ''I have fought a good 
fight, I have finished my course, I have 
kept the faith : henceforth there is laid up 
for me a crown of righteousness, which the 
Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at 
that day." What saintliness is here ! What 
ripeness of character for heaven! How 
remarkable the vision of a man, still an 
inhabitant of earth, yet, in all his afifections 
and aspirations, so thoroughly in the world 
to come! 



Paul's sanctifioation. 121 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Paul's sanctification — the method of 
its attainment. 

" Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended : but 
this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, 
and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 1 
press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling ot 
God in Christ Jesus."— Phil. 3: 13, 14. 

:^0 Christian can look at the character 
of Paul, as just described, without 
feeling a deep interest in the inquiry, How 
did the apostle attain to so remarkable a 
measure of personal sanctification ? Behold- 
ing him on '' the highway of holiness" so 
much in advance of other travellers, — on a 
mountain crowned with the richest verdure 
and bathed in the sunlight of Heaven, while 
the great majority of God's people linger in 

the dark and barren valley below, — every 
11 




122 -HZ :l:sz- "alz. 

pious sonl is filled with the lofty ambition of 
emulating his virtues and following in his 
footeteps. Tme, the standard is so lofty, and 
sc far removed from ordinary life, that imi- 
tation srenis almost impossible. We crave 
a lower ideal after which to pattern our 
character. But, as inspiration says of the 
prayers of that old prophet which were so 
effectual, — " Elias was a man subject to like 
passions as we are,"-— so may we not say of 
Paul's sanctification ? Had he any religious 
capacities which we do not possess ? 

Nothing is more evident than that the 
apostle regarded his conduct and character 
as imitable; for to their imitation he was con- 
stantly exhorting all his brethren. Indeed, 
there is scarcely a letter written by Paul to 
any of the Churches in which, while he pre- 
sents Christ as the only perfect example of 
holy living. :Lr 'iTnaJU pattern, he 

does not 1: : : ^ ' imseK as to tiie 

same end w.V/.;jc.a:^ . iccndary. ''I 



Paul's sanctification. 123 

beseech you, be ye followers of me." ''I 
would that all men were even as I myself.'* 
'^ Brethren, be ye followers of me, and mark 
them which walk as ye have us for an en- 
sample." ^^ Those things which ye have both 
learned, and received, and heard, and seen 
in me J do." 

The question we propose to consider is, 
then, wholly practical. The path in which 
Paul walked, we may walk ; and that mea- 
sure of holiness which he attained, it is our 
privilege to secure. 

Now, bearing this fact in mind, and che- 
rishiDg all the interest that it is so well 
calculated to awaken, we proceed at once to 
the inquiry. How did Paul become so 
Christ-like ? "What made him so pre-emi- 
nent for his piety? How did he live, in 
character to approach so near to a perfect 
standard? Was his holiness the result of 
any direct divine communications, that is, 
communications made to him irrespective 



124 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

of his own activity ? Were there mystical 
openings in his soul, through which God 
poured the grace of sanctification ? Had 
Paul a constitutional predisposition to piety ? 
or was it all the casual result of external 
circumstances ? We have already seen that 
this is not the way in which men become 
holy. Progress in religion; like advance- 
ment in every thing else, is subject to law. 
It is reducible to order, and has its fixed 
conditions. It is conformed, just like any 
other accomplishment of life, to regular me- 
thod. And Paul was holy simply because 
he sought to be holy in the way God 
appointed for securing it. 

What that way is, the passage from one 
of his epistles, placed at the beginning of this 
chapter, is a full exposition. In it Paul 
reveals to us the secret of his holiness. He 
uncovers to our view his internal and spi- 
ritual history. He tells us what were his 
views of himself and his purposes of life, 



Paul's sanctification. 125 

and so definitely marks every step in his 
progress in holiness that no one can fail 
instantly to perceive them: '^Brethren, I 
count not myself to have apprehended : but 
this one thing I do, forgetting those things 
which are behind, and reaching forth unto 
those things which are before, I press toward 
the mark for the prize of the high calling of 
God in Christ Jesus/* 

Paul here mentions five things which may 
be regarded as the means employed by him 
for the attainment of holiness ; or, rather, as 
the great principles which, governing his 
life, resulted, by the divine blessing, in his 
eminent piety. 

1. Paul never thought himself perfect, 
never regarded his Christian life as com- 
plete: ^^ Brethren J I count not myself to 
have apprehended y 

At his miraculous conversion when on the 

way to Damascus, his justification — through 

faith in the sacrifice and work of Christ — 
11* 



126 



THE CLOSER WALK. 



perfect and complete, his sanctification, 
Paul felt, was but initial, and was to continue 
through life progressive. Instead of resting 
upon the simple fact of his regeneration as 
sealing his soul infallibly for heaven, he 
regarded this as only the beginning of a new 
life, to be assiduously cultivated, a piece 
of ^^ solid moral masonry to be carried on 
and up by a lifelong toil." Conscious that 
there still remained in his heart very much 
of ingratitude, ignorance, and lust, and that 
it was the aim of Christianity to remove 
them altogether, he felt that each passing 
day, bearing its part in this work, should 
bring to him an intenser glow of love, and 
a wider horizon of knowledge, and a more 
perfect subjugation of passion. 

When Paul first entered upon his religious 
life, it is natural to suppose that some par- 
ticular sin may in a very special degree 
have troubled him. Thus, by nature of a 
fierce and almost ungovernable temper, it is ' 



Paul's sanctification. 127 

quite likely that at first lie was irascible and 
peevish, and that to conquer this he had to 
direct all his energies. But, a victory at 
this point achieved, was he satisfied ? ^^ I 
count not myself," is his language, '' to have 
apprehended/' His eclair cised vision saw at 
once other evils to be subdued and other 
bosom-sins to be eradicated ; and to this he 
instantly set to work. That pleasing delu- 
sion which sometimes steals over men, and 
which leads them to sit down satisfied with 
themselves, and to feel that they are already 
perfect, never found a place in the bosom of 
the great Apostle of the Gentiles. His in- 
trospection was too keen ever to allow him 
to boast of a spotless purity. 

And here lies the foundation of all efibrt 
to secure holiness, the profound conviction 
of its need. Spiritual pride is an axe at 
the very root of all Christian progress. A 
Laodicean professor — a man in his own 
esteem ^' rich and increased with goods, and 



128 



THE CLOSER WALK. 



needing nothing" — can never be holy. Just 
as a feeling of ignorance leads to the acqui- 
sition of knowledge, or a consciousness of 
disease prompts an application to a physi- 
cian, does a deep realization of moral im- 
perfection lead to the cultivation of holi- 
ness. 

2. But, while Paul was thus continually 
conscious that as yet his character was im- 
perfect, he was equally constant in his 
determination that it should not remain so ; 
and to the accomplishment of this purpose 
he gave the undivided energies of his soul. 
Perfection was the goal of his life. The 
acquisition of personal holiness was the 
single aim of his existence. '' This one 
thing I do,'' 

Upon the mitre of the Jewish high- 
priest — that part of his sacred investiture 
which was over and above all the rest, that 
surmounted the robe, ephod, girdle, and 
Urim and Thummim — was inscribed, ^^JToli- 



Paul's sanctification. 129 

ness to the Lord.'' A like elevation above 
all earthly purposes and plans did Paul give 
to his desire after perfection. He coveted 
the divine favor more than human approba- 
tion. To kneel in penitence at the foot of 
the cross was to him a higher honor than to 
be introduced to a court of fashion ; and the 
secret whisperings of the Spirit he regarded 
as dearer possessions than certificates of 
office or inventories of wealth. In a word, 
every thing was made by the apostle to con- 
verge, either directly or indirectly, towards 
his soul's sanctification. His whole exist- 
ence was a unit. One single purpose per- 
vaded it all. 

■ And thus must it be with those who, like 
this great apostle, would perfect holiness 
in the fear of the Lord. Men never attain 
to any high measure of sanctification, to 
quote another's language, ^^by a few desul- 
tory snatches of sober reflection, or a few 
vague impressions in churches or graveyards. 



130 THE CLOSUR ^VALK. 

Holiness, to be secured, must be treated as 
an interest, a pursuit, a profession. It must 
be made the vocation of the soul, the busi- 
ness of life, the practical handicraft of the 
inner man. It must be begun, continued, 
and never ended. The Bible must be its 
text-book, prayer its rehearsal, and all the 
circling hours of time the periods of its exer- 
cise." To become holy, men must set before 
themselves a perfect standard of excellence 
and ceaselessly struggle to shape their Hves 
to it. They must not be self-indulgent 
when they ought to be self-denying, tolerant 
of imperfections that it is their duty to 
eradicate, and asleep over faults of cha- 
racter which should awaken godly jealousy. 
But, amid all the turmoil and vexing 
cares of secular business, is this possible ? 
Can a man who is necessarily absorbed in a 
worldly avocation say, with Paul, ^^This one 
thing I do" ? Can he make the attainment 
of personal holiness the great aim and pur- 



Paul's sanctifigation. 131 

pose of his life ? In the case of a minister 
we can easily see how the example of the 
apostle may be followed. Every thing he 
is called to do seems naturally to promote 
his sanctification. But is it so with men of 
the world and business ? Must we not have 
for them a different and a somewhat lower 
principle of action ? Not at all, we reply. 
For '^holiness is not doing, but being ^ It 
is not to effect an act, but to achieve a cha- 
racter. It is to become Christ-like; and 
every moment of life, and every act of life, 
is an opportunity for securing this. 

A man cannot pray — that is, directly and 
formally — and yet labor. The latter must 
be intermitted when the former is per- 
formed. But a man may all the time be 
growing holy, at his home and in his shop, 
while conversing with his friends or traffick- 
ing in articles of trade, as well as when 
in church worshipping God. Ay, more in 
the former places than in the latter; for it 



132 THE CLOSER VTALK. 

is the very temptations to anger, evil- speak- 
ing, pride, and dishonesty, which at home 
and in the shop are most apt to rise, that 
furnish us with the opportunities of master- 
ing ourselves and becoming Christ-like. 
Luther uttered a truthful sentiment when 
he said, 

'•' Not more devout the priest can be 
Than Christian housemaid with her broom 
Her work pursuing faithfully." 

3. But another important principle in 
Paul's method of attaining holiness is seen 
in his treatment of the past Eead again 
his inspired words : '^ Brethren, I count not 
myself to have apprehended," I never feel 
as if I had reached the goal of my Christian 
life, perfection: — ^^but this one thing I do," 
— my fixed determination is finally to attain 
it. — ^^ forgetting those things which are he- 
hind, and reaching forth unto those things 
which are before." 

Not a few of the professed disciples of 



PAUL'S SANCTIFICATION. ' 133 

Christ are continually looking back, to see 
what they have done for their Master, or 
what they have left undone. Their position 
is at the stern of the ship, and their glance 
is directed towards the wake of the vessel. 
And in this retrospect do they behold many 
years of labor in the Church? then, with re- 
gard to actual toil in the future, how prone 
are they to say, '^I pray thee, have me 
excused,'' ^'Let some of these young breth- 
ren, who have not like me borne the burden 
and heat of the day, do the work"! Or, 
on the other hand, does the retrospect show 
nothing but idleness and guilt? then their 
remembrance of by-gone faults paralyzes all 
their energies for future toil. 

But no such regard for the past had the 
Apostle Paul. The fact that he had spent 
years in the most laborious service for 
Christ was nothing to him; nor, save to 
repent of them, did he ever recall the follies 
of which he had been guilty. Had he been 

12 



134 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

remiss in past duties? Had he allowed 
some golden opportunities for glorifying 
God to pass unimproved ? Or had he even 
fallen into some grievous sin ? What then ? 
Was it not irreparable? Could tears efface 
it from the memory of God? Was there 
any utility in forever brooding over it? 

" Not backward were his glances bent, 
But onward to his Father's home." 

'^This one thing I do, forgetting those things 
which are behind." 

And this principle, as a means of sanctifi- 
cation, is most potent. To recall past excel- 
lences and labors is to engender spiritual 
pride ; to remember past defects and sins is 
to discourage and dishearten. Should a 
scholar forever think of what he had ac- 
complished in the world of letters, or of 
what he might have accomplished had he 
practised a becoming diligence, he would 
evidently be at a perfect stand-still in learn- 
ing. And it is not otherwise with us in our 



Paul's sanctification. 135 

efforts to secure holiness. In the Christian 
race, men, to be successful, need every thing 
that is hopeful and stimulating. Their faith 
should be sanguine, cheerful, active, neither 
weighted down by the sad memories of an 
irretrievable past, nor having the loftiness 
of its aspirations lowered by the remem- 
brance of attainments in piety already 
made. 

4. But, further, to discover how Paul 
secured for himself so remarkable a degree 
of personal holiness, we must not fail to 
observe the motives that stimulated him, or, 
rather, the goal towards which he ran. Let 
his inspired words be once more recalled : 
'^Brethren, I count not myself to have ap- 
prehended : but this one thing I do, forget- 
ting those things which are behind, and 
reaching forth unto those things which are 
before, / press toward the mark for the 
prize of the high calling of God.'' 

Biblical critics have sometimes made a 



136 THE CLOSER WALK. 

distinction between what Paul here designed 
to denote by the words ^^marK' and ^^ prized' 
They suppose that the first refers to perfec- 
tion of character y and the last to the blessed- 
ness of heaven. The distinction is not fanci- 
ful; neither is the order in which these words 
occur, undesigned. Perfection is placed first, 
because this was the great motive that stimu- 
lated the apostle. He pressed towards '' the 
mark." He earnestly desired to be holy. 
He sought goodness for its own sake. He 
followed after piety just as a true scholar 
follows after knowledge, because it is some- 
thing to be desired in itself. 

But, then, blended with this motive, and 
doubtless even in his inspired mind insepa- 
rable from it, was the personal reward of 
holiness, that prize of blessedness which 
God has promised to all the faithful. 

Moreover, these two things — Christian 
perfection and Christian blessedness — are 
here in the same phrase united, because they 



PAULS SANCTIFICATION. 16 ( 

are in fact inseparable, or, in other words, 
because the latter is always graduated by 
the former. '' The prize ' that God holds up 
to the eye of the believer, and by which He 
would quicken his laggard steps in the divine 
life, is not a fixed and definite thing, inca- 
pable of addition and unsusceptible to di- 
minution, but, on the contrary, is always 
proportioned by the degree of progress that 
we here make towards ^^the mark.'' 

And precisely thus should it be with 
us if our aspirations are to walk as close 
with God as did Paul. "We should think 
first of '^ the mark.'* Our highest ambition 
should be a perfect Christian character. 
We ^ should desire to be holy, not primarily/ 
because without holiness eternal happiness 
is impossible, but because our Father which 
is in heaven is holy. Our religion should 
not be a mere self-seeking. Indeed, if it is, 
we are only preparing for ourselves a certain 
disappointment. But then, after this, and in 

12« 



138 THE CLOSER WALK. 

the intensity of our desire always second to 
this, we should think of '' the prized We 
should keep steadily before us the thought 
of home, realize its blessedness, and let the 
radiant diadem of glory which there awaits 
us give new vigor to our flagging steps. 

How truthful and beautiful is that hymn 
of the Jesuit Xavier ! 



" My God, I love thee, not because 
I hope for heaven thereby, 
Nor because they who love thee not 
Must burn eternally. 

" Thou, my Jesus, thou didst me 
Upon the cross embrace, — 
For me didst bear the nails and spear, 
And manifold disgrace. 



" Then why, blessed Jesus Christ, 
Shall I not love thee well, 
Not for the sake of winning heaven, 
Or of escaping hell, — 

" Nor with the hope of gaining aught, 
Nor seeking a reward. 
But as thyself hast loved me, 
ever-loving Lord ?" 



Paul's sanctification. 139 

6. But one thought more remains; and 
it is the highest and best of all. Every 
attempt of Paul to grow in grace was made 
in humble dependence upon Christ. Bead 
again his own history of his religious life: 
^' Brethren, I count not myself to have appre- 
hended ; but this one thing I do, forgetting 
those things which are behind, and reaching 
forth unto those things which are before, I 
press toward the mark for the prize of the 
high calling of God in Christ Jesus." 

Paul believed in a real, personal, ever- 
living Saviour, and was continually con- 
scious of His presence. That^Eedeemer who 
died for his soul's salvation, he believed 
knew its weakness, visited it in its dangers, 
comforted it in its sorrows, and chastened it 
in its wilfulness. He had faith not in a dead 
Christ only J but in a living one also. He 
felt his whole being encircled and touched 
with a celestial presence. Another will than 
his own had begun to work within his own, 



140 



THE CLOSER WALK. 



both to will and to do. He realized that 
the grand peculiarity of the gospel is that 
it does not stop with telling men how to act, 
but enters into their souls by the living 
person of the Lord, and becomes there an 
indwelling force, by which they act. 

And there is no principle so wondrously 
efficient for the production of holiness as 
this. ''Christ uttered no syllables more full 
of tenderness than when He besought His 
followers to feel that 'without Him they could 
do nothing;' and never furnished man with 
an uplifting or propelling impulse so august 
and benignant as when He said : ' Lo, I am 
with you alway.' " It is this which brings 
down the help of the Almighty to renew 
from day to day the weakness of His chil- 
dren, and it is in proportion to a Christian's 
faith in this truth that he can do all things. 

And it is because we so often forget this 
dependence, and strive in our own strength 
to be holy, that we remain so sinful. We 



Paul's sanctification. 141 

fall in the hour of temptation, as Peter sank 
in the waters of Gennesareth, until, conscious 
that all our help must come from Christ, we 
exclaim, as did the sinking apostle, ^' Lord, 
save me" ! 



142 THE CLOSEE WALZ. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE GREAT MOTIVE TO SA2>'CTIEICATI0N. 






"Tliis is the will of God., even your sanctification."— 
1 Thess. 4 : 3. 



'HE will of God is the motive of 
greatest potency to eveiy renewed 
mind. Fully satisfy a true Cliristian that 
any line of conduct you propose for his 
adoption will meet with the divine appro- 
bation, and you cannot but be successful. 
To the power of this consideration all ques- 
tions of worldly expediency are secondary. 
As the soul born of the Spirit looks out 
upon its history, both in this world and in 



GREAT MOTIVE TO SANCTIFICATION. 143 

that which is to come, it is able to exclaim, 
— -just as did Christ in the survey of His 
mortal career, from the stable where the shep- 
herds found Him, to the sepulchre where the 
Arimathean laid Him : " Lo, I come ! in the 
volume of the book it is written of me, I 
delight to do thy will, my God." Our 
blessed Saviour said, ''My meat is to do 
the will of Him that sent me;" and again, 
'' For I came down from heaven, not to do 
mine own will, but the will of Him that sent 
me;" and ''the same mind that was in 
Christ" is in all His people. 

Indeed, where self-will^ or a disposition to 
exalt our own preferences and arrangements 
above those of the Creator, is supreme, there 
can be no piety. The very essence of true 
religion is submission. " To do the will of 
God" is to be adopted into the family of 
God;* and to "be complete in all the will of 

-* Mark 3 : 35. 



144 THE CLOSER WALK. 

God" — the prayer of Epaphras for the 
Colossians — is that they might attain to 
perfection in the divine life. 

"With regard to the reception of truth by 
the intellect, Christianity admits of some 
diversity. Men to be truly the children of 
God need not have precisely the same doc- 
trinal views. There is no creed that we can 
carry with us into the universal Church, and 
to which we can demand subscription as 
essential to piety. But this is not so with 
reference to the will. In this department of 
our mental constitution, Christianity admits 
of no diversity. No man can be a true 
follower of Christ whose will does not bow 
in joyful submission to the will of God, and 
who does not make the divine law th^ ulti- 
mate rule of his life. '^Thy will he done^' is 
not the shibboleth of a school, but the lan- 
guage of the universal Church. The whole 
elect of God, in every age and nation, have 
felt the submission that these words express. 



GREAT MOTIVE TO SAKCTIFICATION. 145 

As a religious quietist, Madame Guyon 
may have but little of our sympathy ; but 
a woman in prison lor righteousness' sake, 
who could thus sing of her joyful submis- 
sion to the divine will, we cannot but take 
to our hearts as a true child of God : 

" A little bird I am, 

Shut from the fields of air ; 
And in my cage I sit, and sing 

To Him who placed me there. 
Well pleased a prisoner to be, 
Because, my God, it pleases thee." 

In proposing, then, the inquiry with re- 
ference to the believer's sanctification, — 
What is the will of God ? let it not be for- 
gotten that our inquiry regards the motive 
of greatest potency to every pious mind. 

And here how direct and positive is the 
answer of inspiration ! In this world we are 
oftentimes in doubt with regard to what the 
divine will is. Some line of conduct sug- 
gested to us, and the question with reference 
to it earnestly asked, '' Lord, what wilt thou 

13 



146 THE CLOSER WALK. 

have me to do ?" we still hear no certain and 
authoritative reply. But it is not so in 
the case before us: ''This is the will 
OF God, even your sanctification.'' 
God desires that all His people should be 
holy. Vessels of an invisible sanctuary 
and emptied of all impurity, He earnestly 
desires that they should be filled with all 
that is pure, holy, and beneficent. This is 
uniformly represented in the Sacred Scrip- 
tures as the ultimate end of Christ's sacri- 
£ce in our behalf : ''He gave himself for us, 
that He might redeem us from all iniquity." 
And to the accomplishment of this purpose 
were all the prayers and labors of the in- 
spired apostles directed : "And I pray God 
your whole spirit and soul and body be pre- 
served blameless unto the coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ." 

And sayictificatioUj the will of God with 
reference to His people, is also His will in 
regard to the whole universe. He has con- 



GEEAT MOTIVE TO SANCTIFICATION. 147 

secrated it all for His use ; He has devoted 
it to His service and glory. It is altogether 
one vast temple, intended solely for pur- 
poses of worship and designed to be every- 
where vocal with His praise. ''The Lord 
hath made all things for Himself. '* 

But this will of God universal is also — 
if we may so speak — all-inclusive, Mark 
the full force of His declaration. Grod does 
not say that He simply desires His people's 
sanctification, — that this is one among the 
many purposes which He cherishes for them, 
— but He speaks as if He had no other will 
but this with reference to them, or as if in 
this was summed up all that He required of 
them : '' This is the will of God, even your 
sanctificationy 

To this view is it objected that other 
things are spoken of in the Bible as the 
will of Grod with reference to His people? 
It only requires that we should examine 
these, to find that they all terminate in this 



148 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

one, their sanctification. Thus, is God's will 
said to be His own glory, or, rather, that He 
should be glorified by His creatures. How 
can men accomplish this, save as, in moral 
character like God, or, in other words, sane- 
tifiedj they shadow forth in their lives that 
divine resemblance ? ^^ Herein is my Father 
glorified, that ye bear much fruit.'' 
^^When in summer we behold the earth 
clothed with luxuriant vegetation, adorned 
with flowers and enlivened by myriads of 
sportive, happy beings, and remember that 
the sun is instrumentally the cause of all 
this, it may in one sense be said to be glori- 
fied in the earth." In a similar way is 
Christ, the great Sun of righteousness, glo- 
rified by His people. It is when men see 
sinful and guilty worms of the dust trans- 
formed into every thing that in character is 
beautiful and lovely, and remember that 
the transformation was wrought by the 
power of God, that He is in them glorified. 



GEEAT MOTIVE TO SANCTIFICATION. 149 

To say, then, that God's will is that '' He 
should be glorified by us/' is precisely the 
same as to say that *' His will is our sancti- 
fication." The last is the only way by 
which the former can be accomplished. 

But, again, does God require of us to 
believe in Him ? Is the exercise of faith 
God's will in reference to us? What is 
sanctification, but the tree of which faith is 
the Tootj or the end of that divine life of 
which faith is the beginning ? A true be- 
lief in Christ, and personal holiness, are not 
two things distinct from each other and 
capable of being set over against each other, 
but, on the contrary, the same thing, at dif- 
ferent periods of its existence. The first 
is the blade, the last the full corn ; the first 
is the tender babe in Christ, the last the 
strong man. Indeed, the two words are so 
far synonyms as mutually to imply each 
other. God desires our faith when He de- 
sires our sanctification ; and v/hen He wishes 

13* 



150 THE CLOSER WALK. 

US to be holy, He wishes us to believe on 
Him whom He has sent. 

And the same is true of our happiness. 
Is it said that the will of God is the highest 
happiness of His creatures? This is but 
another way of saying that His will is their 
sanctification. The one necessarily includes 
the other. Holiness and happiness are 
linked together as indissolubly as are misery 
and sin. No man can have '^ a continual 
feast" who is inwardly impure; nor can he 
be a stranger to true happiness on whose 
soul God has imprinted the image of Him- 
self. 

But, the sanctification of His people being 
the universal and all-inclusive will of God, it 
is likewise towards its accomplishment that 
all human events tend. It could not be other- 
wise. Nothing required for the perfection 
of His chosen ones will be withheld. God 
desires their sanctification at any price. 
The inanimate creation called into existence 



GKEAT MOTIVE TO SANCTIFICATION. 151 

for the sake of spiritual beings has all 
its arrangements ordered so as to promote 
their welfare. It is for the enlargement 
and strengthening of the Church that all 
the empires of the world have their rise, 
history, and decay. For this God changes 
their laws, alters their boundaries, desolates 
them by war, or blesses them with peace. 
Indeed, it is only as the theatre upon which 
moral beings may develop their character 
and ripen for heaven, that the whole mate- 
rial system is upheld. It is nothing but 
a scaffolding to an invisible temple rising 
within. And when that shall have been 
completed, and all the moral beings for 
whom God made the world shall have lived 
upon it and passed away, the power that 
now holds it on its poise will be withdrawn, 
and all its wondrous mechanism will sink 
into forgetfulness. 

And the same is true of the individual 
believer. The will of God being his sanctifi- 



162 THE CLOSER WALE. 

cation, all the manifold events of life are de- 
signed for its accomplishment. To promote 
our holiness, God gives us in profusion 
earthly blessings. Tokens of His goodness 
are showered upon us, that we might be 
drawn to repentance. And for the same 
reason God takes away what He had be- 
stowed. He raises the storm in the most 
serene and brilliant sky, and makes calamity 
burst forth in the midst of overflowing 
prosperity. 

And this fact, how full of encouragement 
is it to every pious soul longing for a 
closer walk with God! What you desire 
for yourself, God desires in your behalf. 
Indeed, this is the first, last, and only will 
of God regarding you. It is a desire as 
strong as yours is weak. It existed long 
before the first thought of holiness arose in 
your mind, and was, in fact, its author. It 
can never abate in its intensity. God now 
desiring your sanctification must always 



GEEAT MOTIVE TO SANCTIFICATION. 153 

desire it. And what He wills to accomplish, 
He has the requisite power to perform. 
Take courage, then, disciple of Christ: those 
spiritual foes which would impede your pro- 
gress in the divine life, though numerous 
and strong, are not so mighty as the Cham- 
pion you have found. In striving to be 
holy, you are not acting alone, but in con- 
cert with the great God. 



154 



THE CLOSEE WALK. 



CHAPTEE X. 



CONNECTION BETWEEN HOLINESS AND USE- 
FULNESS. 

" He tliat will work for ottiera' good 
Must be HIMSELF renewed: 
So, before all tbings, thou must try 
Thtsexe- to pubify." 

Thoxuok. 

"Restore unto me tlie joy of thy salvation; and uphold 
me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy 
ways ; and sinners shall he converted unto thee." — PsALM 
51 : 12, 13. 

tN earnest desire to extend the tri- 
umphs of Christianity is an invariable 
result of its reception. The unsophisticated 
promptings of the new-born soul are always 
to active eJffort for God. Its very first 
impulse is that something oniist he done. 
What it has received, it would communi- 
cate. Having been enlightened, it would 
shine. Its own spiritual thirst satisfied by 



HOLINESS AND USEFULNESS. 155 

coming to Christ and drinking of the ^'living 
water/' it would itself become; as it were, 
a secondary fountain for quenching the thirst 
of others.* 

Nor is this a mere transient emotion, the 
gushing forth of a gratitude that will soon 
spend itself. On the contrary, it is a per- 
manent condition of the soul, or rather it is 
a desire that time only increases. It was 
many years after Paul's conversion — twenty, 
at least — that he said of his countrymen, 
''My heart's desire and prayer to God for 
Israel is, that they might be saved." ''For 
I could wish that myself were accursed from 
Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen accord- 
ing to the flesh." When that eminent Chris- 
tian Thomas Cranfield was eighty years 
of age, instead of having his zeal for the 
conversion of men lessened, it was so greatly 
increased as to lead him for the enlarge- 
ment of his usefulness to devise new schemes. 

* John 7 : 37, 38. 



166 



THE CLOSER WALK. 



Short and pithy Scriptural sentences, written 
upon slips of paper, and calculated to arouse 
or edify, were distributed in all his walks. 

But for the accomplishment of this desire, 
universal to believers, what is the highest 
preparation ? As elements of usefulness, any 
attempt to disparage learning, wealth, or 
social position would be vain. There is 
great power for good in them ; and when to 
such an end they are desired, men do well 
to ^^ covet them earnestly.'* '^ Yet show I 
unto you a more excellent way!' To do 
good, men should he good. Holiness is the 
most certain road to usefulness. 

How many Scripture facts and inspired 
declarations illustrate this truth! That 
prayer of Christ in behalf of His disciples, 
'^Sanctify them through thy truth,'* was 
doubtless offered with reference to their use- 
fulness in the peculiar position in which they 
were soon to be placed. Our blessed Lord 
was on the very eve of His crucifixion. A 



HOLINESS AND USEFULNESS. 157 

few hours more, and the traitorous kiss, 
arrest, trial, death, would come. The found- 
ations of the Church, He was about to lay- 
in blood, and then, ascending to His heavenly 
Father, the great work of building with 
lively stones, upon this foundation, a spi- 
ritual temple, was to be left to His disciples. 
And now, '^0 Father, sanctify them," is His 
prayer; make them holy, take away from 
them every sin, that they may be qualified 
for their great work. With what a pecu- 
liar beauty and power do these words of 
Christ teach the connection between holi- 
ness and usefulness ! 

How beautiful, also, is the picture that 
inspiration presents of the churches in 
Macedonia! Of one of them Paul says, 
^^For from you sounded out the word of the 
Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, 
but also in every place your faith to God- 
ward is spread abroad;" and of all, though 
in '^deep poverty" and in ''a great trial of 

14 



158 THE CLOSER WALK. 

affliction/' the same apostle testifies that 
their liberality to the saints at Jerusalem 
was both beyond his expectation and be- 
yond what in their condition he would have 
thought possible. 

And of this remarkable devotedness Paul 
gives us the secret in the wordS; ^^ They gave 
their very selves to the Lord Jirst''^ The 
Macedonian converts were doubtless true be- 
lievers before this. They had fled for refuge 
to the hope set before them. But from this 
small beginning of piety they had been 
going on towards perfection. The work of 
grace had been greatly deepened in their 
hearts. They had made an entire consecra- 
tion of themselves to God; and hence their 
liberality and widely extended influence. 

And to these Scriptural illustrations of the 
connection between holiness and usefulness 
we would only add the express declaration 
of Peter, ''For if these things be in you 

* The literal rendering of 2 Cor. 8 : 5. 



HOLINESS AND USEFULNESS. 169 

and abound/' — tliat is, if to faith as a found- 
ation you add all the other graces of Chris- 
tianity, virtue, knowledge, temperance, pa- 
tience, godliness, brotherly-kindness, charity, 
— '' they make you that ye shall neither be 
barren [idle] nor unfruitful in the know- 
ledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

But, further to see how those who would 
be useful must be holy, observe the fact that 
almost all the motives which hnpel to Chris- 
tian activity are directly and vitally con- 
nected with the souVs internal state. 

One of these is the conviction of the lost 
condition of men. Christians labor to save 
men because of their deep and abiding faith 
in the great truth that they are sinners, 
and as such exposed to the wrath of God. 
It is not enough to look upon our race 
as intellectually and socially degraded, or 
as robbed of their true dignity and pre- 
rogatives. In this aspect of man we have 
no sufficient basis for such an enterprise as 



160 THE CLOSER WALK. 

is necessary for his salvation. The spirit 
that can embrace and sustain a work call- 
ing for so much labor and sacrifice as this, 
can have its origin in no lower view of man 
than that which recognizes him as morally 
depraved, and as passing every hour un- 
blessed to his final home. 

But to this truth men are sensible just in 
the proportion of their piety. It is indeed 
an easy thing for men to hold on this point 
an orthodox creed; but really to believe and 
feel that all are by nature ruined, and can 
be saved only through Christ's death, re- 
quires a large measure of His Spirit. And 
just as that Spirit is attained are our sensi- 
bilities to this truth increased, and our 
activities quickened. 

And the same is true of that high and 
commanding motive to Christian activity 
which includes every other, and without 
which all others would be valueless. We 
mean the love of Christ. First, His love for 



HOLINESS AND USEFULNESS. 161 

uSj sliming out from the cross, and beaming 
down upon us from His mediatorial throne 
in heaven; secondly, our love for Him, a re- 
sponsive affection enkindled in every renewed 
heart by the consciousness of His goodness. 
It was this that ''constrained" Paul to 
" preach among the Gentiles the unsearch- 
able riches of Christ/' and that has ever 
since apostolic times raised up faithful wit- 
nesses for the truth. Here lies the germ 
of all missionary enterprises. It is this 
that carried the gospel from Jerusalem to 
every part of the Roman empire, and that 
is now causing it to be preached in distant 
and barbarous climes. As Isaac Taylor 
says of Whitefield, so may we say of all the 
faithful heralds of salvation : '' His motive 
was not a congeries of reasons and consider- 
ations : it was an impulse, spontaneous, irre- 
sistible, bright, and fraught with love, hope, 
and a sure anticipation of abundant success." 
The love of Christ constrained him. 

^ 14* 



162 



THE CLOSER WALK. 



But this motive to Christian activity, is it 
any thing more than another name for piety ? 
Our love to Christ, or the consciousness of 
His love for us, are they not in exact pro- 
portion to our growth in grace? Can we 
conceive of any progress in religion that 
does not involve an increase of love ? Can 
we take one step towards heaven without 
having in our esteem ^' the exceeding riches 
of His grace" magnified, and without having 
our affection for Him, in turn, quickened 
and enlarged ? 

But, leaving here the motives that impel 
believers to labor for Christ, how impress- 
ively are we taught the connection between 
holiness and usefulness, by observing the 
agencies for doing good, that Christians may 
employ ; and the obvious fact that these are 
all mainly dependent for their efficiency upon 
the personal holiness of those who use them ! 

In speaking of the means that God has 
put into the hands of the Church for evan- 



HOLINESS AND USEFULNESS. 163 

gelism, we are wont to give tlie first place to 
prayer. And this is right. Prayer lies at 
the foundation of all successful labor for 
Christ. But the power of this agency as 
used by any individual believer, is it not in 
exact proportion to his internal holiness? 
This makes prayer prevalent '^ If ye ahide 
in me, and my words ahide in you, ye shall 
ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto 
you." '' The effectual fervent prayer of a 
righteous man availeth much." This makes 
prayer importunate. It is only the heart 
deeply pervaded with the love of Christ that 
will ^' continue instant in prayer." With a 
vague and superficial desire for the salvation 
of men, Christians soon become weary of sup- 
plicating God in their behalf. This prompts 
to the duty itself. Minds full of God are 
constantly looking up to God. Holiness 
being from heaven, its possessor is ever 
seeking to revert to its source. In the very 
midst of earthly toil, mature Christians 



164 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

oftentimes seize, for their own indulgence, 
opportunities to pray, and are ever springing 
up to those eminences of meditation where 
they love to dwell. 

^'In the apostolic epistles, critics have 
observed that doxologies are sometimes im- 
bedded in passages of remonstrance and of 
warning. It would seem that the sanctified 
minds of their authors came down unwill- 
ingly or from a sense of duty only, to deal 
with the sins and weaknesses of earth, and 
were continually on the watch for chances 
to rise like a bird let loose, though but for a 
moment, into the upper air."* 

But second only to prayer, as an instrument 
for evangelism, is the indirect but powerful 
influence of example. Paul, in counselling 
his friend Timothy '^ as to the best method 
of doing good in the sphere of duty allotted 
to him," seems to give this the precedent 
even of teaching : '^ Take heed unto thy self j 

^ Still Hour, p. 98. 



1 



HOLINESS AND USEFULNESS. 165 

and unto tlie doctrine." " To be duly effect- 
ive; truth must come not like incense from 
the censer that only holds it, but like fra- 
grance from a flower, exhaling from a nature 
suffused with it throughout." 

Neander, in his '^ Memorials of Christian 
Life," thus speaks of the influence of ex- 
ample in apostolic times : '' By a continued 
succession of miracles Christianity could not 
have taken a firm hold on human nature, if 
it had not penetrated it by its divine power, 
and thus verified itself to be indeed that 
which alone can satisfy the higher necessi- 
ties of the inner man. This divine power of 
the gospel revealed itself to the heathen in 
the lives of Christians, which ' showed forth 
the virtues of Him who had called them 
out of darkness into His marvellous light.' 
This announcement of the gospel by the life 
operated even more powerfully than its 
announcement by the word.'' 

But how can this be, apart from the con- 



166 THE CLOSER WALK. 

tinual indwelling of God's Spirit ? The whole 
power for good of example, can any thing be 
more evident than that it lies in inward 
sanctification ? Indeed, without this, its in- 
fluence so benign becomes one entirely of 
evil. ^^If therefore the light that is in 
thee be darkness, how great is that dark- 
ness !" A rocky coast on which government 
has erected a light-house, is for that very 
reason all the more dangerous if the lamp 
upon its summit be unlighted. An instru- 
ment of life, it is then changed into an 
instrument of death. Thus is it with a pro- 
fessed disciple of Christ who, unsanctified in 
heart, is ungodly in life. He lures men on 
to destruction, instead of guiding them in 
the way of salvation. He authenticates the 
way to death, and gives a sort of sacredness 
to the broad road. Those Christians only 
''shine as lights in the world," and, like the 
colossal statue at the harbor of Rhodes, 
''hold forth the word of life," who are 



HOLINESS AND USEFULNESS. 167 

''blameless and harmless, tlie sons of God 
without rebuke in the midst of a crooked 
and perverse nation." 

And then, as to a third instrumentality 
that the Church may employ for evangelism, 
oral and written instruction , though we 
cannot deny that true and holy words 
may be spoken by lips untrue and profane, 
we are yet ready to assert that an experi- 
mental acquaintance with divine truth, or, in 
other words, inward piety, is the first qua- 
lification of every religious teacher, and the 
surest pledge of his success. 

Dr. Caird, in one of his sermons, has 
expressed this thought so beautifully and 
forcibly that we need make no apology for the 
length of the quotation : '' The conveyance 
of thought and feeling from mind to mind 
is not a process which depends on mere 
verbal accuracy. Language is not the only 
medium through which moral convictions and 
impressions are transmitted from speaker to 



168 THE CLOSER WALK. 

hearer. There is another and more subtle 
mode of communication, a mysterious moral 
contagion, by means of which, irrespective 
of the mere intellectual apparatus employed, 
the instructor's beliefs and emotions are 
passed over into the minds of his auditory. 
Strong conviction has a force of persuasion 
irrespective of the mere oral instrument by 
which it works. Through the rudest forms 
of speech, originality and earnestness make 
themselves felt ; and a sentence of simple, 
earnest talk will sometimes thrill the heart 
which the most refined and labored rhetoric 
would leave untouched. . . . No stereotyped 
orthodoxy, no stimulated fervors, however 
close and clever the imitation, will achieve 
the magic elBfects of reality. The preacher 
may reproduce verbatim the language of the 
wise and good, . . . but so long as they are 
but the echo of other men's experience, and 
not the expression of his own, the pro- 
foundest truths will fall inefi'ectively from 



HOLINESS AND USEFULNESS. 169 

his lips. There will be an unnatiiralness 
and unreality in the very tone and manner 
in which he utters them. . . , The rod is 
not in the magician's hand, and it will not 
conjure. . . . The shape and semblance and 
color of truth he may display, but it will be 
as the waxen imitation of the lilies of the 
field; the divine aroma will not be there." 

Dr. Chalmers was intellectually the same 
man when in Kilmany and in Glasgow, but 
spiritually very different. A mere moralist 
in the first place, with no personal and ex- 
perimental acquaintance with Christ as his 
Saviour ; a truly devout and spiritually- 
minded man in the last city, living in 
habitual communion with the infinite Truth 
and Life. And does not this go far to ex- 
plain the fact that his ministry at Kilmany 
was barren and unfruitful; while at Glas- 
gow, multitudes through his instrumentality 
were brought to Jesus? 

And this suggests — as illustrating still 

15 



1<U THE CLOSEE VTALK. 

furtlier the connection between doing good 
and hehig good — ^the simple mention of the 
fact, so mnch upon the very surface of the 
Church's history that no one can fail to 
notice it, that so many of her most useful 
membei^ have been those whose birth was 
lowly, who spent their lives in poverty, and 
who were comparatively ignorant of this 
world's learning. 

Howard, the great philanthropist, could 
not write Eno^lish ojrammaticallv:'*' Robert 
Eaikes, the founder of Sunday-schools, was 
a printer; John Pounds, the man who es- 
tablished the first ragged-school in London, 
was a cobbler ; Leonhard Dober, the Mora- 
vian, who offered to sell himseK into bond- 
age that he might preach Christ to the en- 
slaved upon the island of St. Thomas, and 
who has been called " the father of modem 
missions," was a potter ; and there are few 
men, in any walk of life, who, having turned 

* Bayne's Christiaii Life, p. 115. 



HOLINESS AND USEFULNESS. 171 

many to righteousness, will like a star, in 
the firmament of God's redeemed people, 
shine as brightly as Harlan Page, the joiner. 

But we have one more view of our theme 
to present. Of the precise and definite 
work assigned by our blessed Lord to the 
Christian ministry, we have this inspired 
statement : ^' And He gave some apostles, 
and some prophets, and some evangelists, 
and some pastors and teachers, for the per- 
fecting of the saints, for the work of the 
ministry, for the edifying of the body of 
Christ." Here the whole work of a gospel 
minister is spoken of as something within 
the Church and upon the saints. Not one 
word is said of labor among the ungodly. 
His entire office, as here represented, is the 
perfection and edification of God's people. 
And is there no significance in this ? 

That we are not from it to infer that 
every minister should not labor directly and 
earnestly for the salvation of the impenitent, 



172 THE CLOSER WALK. 

is indeed evident. For this is, after all, the 
ultimate purpose of all his toil. The pass- 
age instructs us only as to the best way of 
securing this end, and teaches us most im- 
pressively that this is through the upbuild- 
ing in holiness of God's people. Men are 
wont, we know, to feel that all the convert- 
ing power of the Church is in the pulpit; but 
the sacred Scriptures tell us that it is in the 
body of Christ. It is not the ministry, but 
the Church, that is God's appointed instru- 
mentality for the world's conversion. 

And the experience of all ages confirms 
this truth. The ministry which fails to edify 
and perfect the people of God fails also in its 
attempts to convert sinners. Negligent and 
impotent in its work within the Church, it 
is likewise unsuccessful without it. More- 
over, it is confessedly by the labors, prayers, 
and pious example of private Christians 
that a large majority of all the converts of 
all past ages have been brought to Christ. 



HOLINESS AND USEFULNESS. 173 

The relation of the ministry to the conversion 
of men is much more frequently indirect than 
direct. It stimulates to a closer walk with 
God, and to the cultivation of all the graces 
of Christianity, those believers whose per- 
sonal influence and faithful endeavors bring 
men to Jesus, and thus saves them ; oftener 
than by its most impassioned appeals to the 
impenitent it persuades them immediately 
to come to Christ. 

The palm-tree — a Scriptural illustration, 
as in another connection we have remarked, 
of the believer's life — is an evergreen, and 
is continually bearing fruit. Though every 
thing around it may be parched with the 
summer's drought, and the very earth itself 
be as sterile as the desert, yet its leaves 
never wither, nor does it ever fail to afford 
both refreshment and shade to the weary 
traveller. And the reason lies in the single 
fact that, striking its roots deep down into 
the bowels of the earth, it draws its life 

15* 



174 THE CLOSER WALK. 

from those springs of water that there never 
cease to flow. 

What that tree is to an Oriental land- 
scape, is the deeply devout believer to human 
society. Drawing his spiritual life from 
habitual communion with God, he is entirely 
unaffected by those spiritual droughts which 
destroy the usefulness of other Christians. 
He is an evergreen in the Church, and is 
continually bringing forth fruit to the glory 
of God. 



PEOGRESS IN EELIGION. 175 



CHAPTEE XI. 

PROGRESS IN RELIGION ESSENTIAL TO PRE- 
VENT DECLENSION. 



"Even as the soil which April's gentle showers 
Have filled with sweetness and enriched with flowers. 
Rears up her sucking plants, still shooting forth 
The tender blossoms of her timely birth. 
But if denied the beams of cheerly May, 
They hang their withered heads, and fade away; 
So man assisted by the Almighty's hand, 
His faith doth flourish and securely stand; 
But left a while, forsook, as in a shade. 
It languishes, and, nipped with sin, doth fade."— Quaklbs. 

" For if ye do these things, ye shall neyer fall." — 2 Petbe, 
1: 10. 



NOTHING- saddens us so much in the 
history of good men as their fre- 
quent lapses into sin. We can hardly refrain 
from tears in reading of Noah's drunkenness, 
David's adultery, Jonah's petulance, and 
Peter's double crime of profanity and base 
denial of his Master. That men who have 




176 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

never 'Hasted and seen that the Lord is 
good" should not still desire communion with 
Him, is strange ; but stranger still is the fact 
that Christians should ever forsake God and 
go again after idols. It is as if a savage 
who had been civilized should desire to re- 
turn to his life in the wilderness, or as if 
the prodigal who had been restored to his 
father and home should try again to live on 
the husks that the swine eat. 

But these instances of open and flagrant 
sin on the part of God's people are very 
few in comparison with their secret, though 
not less real, backslidings. Motives of 
worldly expediency are potent enough to 
keep men from letting their feet fall into 
the ways of sin, even if their hearts are there. 
We know of no great crimes of which the 
Galatians were guilty; yet so far in their 
affections had they departed from God as to 
account His servant Paul their enemy, and 
to constrain from him the inquiry, '^ Where 



PBOGRESS IN EELiaiON. 177 

is then the blessedness ye spake of?" And 
the same was true of the Christians at Ephe- 
sus. They had a commendable zeal against 
heresy and immorality — "hated the deeds 
of the Nicolaitans," and "could not bear 
them which were evil" — at the very time 
that they had "left their first love." 

But whence these many and sad instances 
of religious declension ? Is it enough to 
resolve them all into the one great fact of 
human frailty, and say that they are what 
we must ever expect to find in one so liable 
to fall as man ? 

Should we carefully examine any parti- 
cular case of backsliding in the Church that 
might be presented us, we would find that 
its real cause was the want of a constant 
growth in all the graces of the believer's 
life. At some point the character was defi- 
cient, there had been no progress, and there 
the fall occurred. 

Thus, Noah and David sinned, the one in 



178 THE CLOSER WALK. 

his intoxication and the other in his adul- 
tery, because they had not added to their 
faith temperance, — the subjection of all pas- 
sion and appetite to the soul's highest good; 
Jonah and Elijah sinned in the complaints 
that they uttered against the ways of God 
towards them, and in their common prayer 
for death, because they had not added to 
their faith patience j — an implicit confidence 
in God ; Peter sinned in his base denial of 
Christ, because he had not added to his faith 
virtue^ — a true manly courage; and Paul 
and Barnabas sinned in that sharp conten- 
tion about Mark which caused them to sepa- 
rate one from the other, because they had 
not added to their faith brotherly kindness. 
Indeed, what could on this point be more 
positive than that declaration of inspiration : 
^^ If ye do these things j' — if you diligently 
cultivate all the graces of Christianity, — 
^^ye shall never faW ? 

When a Christian who has failed to adorn 



PROGRESS IN RELiaiON. 179 

his character with every grace goes out into 
the battle of life, he is just like a mailed 
knight of olden times meeting his enemy with 
his visor down, or his helmet off, or his 
greaves loose, or his breastplate unfastened. 
He has in his character vulnerable points. 
Is it any wonder that he is pierced by the 
arrows of his great adversary? The pro- 
mise of being '^ able to withstand in the evil 
day'' is only made to those who take unto 
themselves ^Hhe whole armor of God." 

It is often said of the Christian life, that 
men who are in it cannot remain stationary ; 
that they are continually advancing in holi- 
ness and in preparation to meet God, or as 
continually going back to the world in their 
affections and interests. And the remark is 
as true as it is solemn and weighty. The 
question with a Christian is never. Shall I 
grow in grace, or remain with my present 
measure of sanctification ? God has given 
no man such an election. Our choice is en- 



180 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

tirely between progression and retrogression, 
between going upward and going downward, 
between becoming spiritually-minded and 
becoming worldly-minded. 

Is this not so ? Take a small fraction of 
the believer's probation, — a single hour, if 
you please, — and see how impossible it is that 
we should live even for so short a time as 
this without our moral character expe- 
riencing some change. That hour brought 
with it solemn commands from God. Were 
they obeyed ? The soul's spiritual strength 
was renewed. Were they disregarded? 
The consciousness of Jehovah's claim upon 
our obedience was weakened. That hour 
had its temptations. Though spent in the 
utmost privacy, away from the gaze of the 
world and its fascinations, yet in the pre- 
sence of our own wicked desires and lusts, 
we heard their siren voice luring us on to 
evil. And did we manfully resist ? What 
an element of strength was thus silently 



PEOGRESS IN RELIGION. 181 

■wrought into our character! what a true 
advance in holiness did we make ! Or, on the 
contrary, were we overcome? How much 
was our power of resisting other temptations 
thus weakened ! That hour brought some 
work for us to do. It laid a duty at our 
feet. Did we joyfully rise up and perform 
it, or, the hour expired, was the duty there 
still undone? The answer will decide what 
was the spiritual result upon us of that 
small portion of probation. If the duty was 
at once faithfully met, it gave robustness 
and vigor to our piety; but if wickedly 
neglected, we came out of that hour with 
our spiritual nature stunted and dwarfed. ^- 
An analogy that will illustrate this truth 
is found in the development of the intellect. 
It never stands still. Progression or retro- 
gression is its universal law. No man is 
mentally to-day what he was yesterday, nor 
will he be to-morrow what he is to-day. 
The horizon of his knowledge widens or 

16 



182 THE CLOSER WALK. 

narrows, and his power of compreliending 
and communicating truth increases or less- 
ens. A linguist will soon forget a language 
acquired after the most laborious study, if 
he never either speak or read it. Skill in 
the use of the pencil and chisel is rapidly 
lost when they are entirely laid aside. 
Scientific information disappears when scien- 
tific research is abandoned. In the world 
of letters, should a man imagine that he had 
made sufficient advancement, and for this 
reason resign himself to mental indolence, 
he would soon become a mere sciolist. The 
price of retaining what we know, is always 
to seek to know more. We preserve our 
learning and mental power only by increas- 
ing them. 

And just as this becomes to a scholar a 
most impressive motive for constant study, 
ought the correlative fact in our spiritual 
life to constrain the Christian to a constant 
growth in grace. We cannot afibrd to 



PEOGEESS IN EELIGIOK. 183 

allow a single day of life to pass without 
some advancement in religion, when we know 
that the inevitable consequence of failure is 
spiritual decline. 

A man in a boat upon the rapids just 
above a cataract will not pause a moment 
in plying diligently his oars. For he well 
knows that there is no such thing as stand- 
ing still in that river. Every moment of 
rest in his rowing only allows his boat to 
glide for a little way down the stream, put- 
ting in jeopardy his life or increasing his toil 
in the future. Our souls in a situation not 
unlike to this, in a position where not to 
advance is necessarily to go back, how 
strange that Christians should ever remit 
their exertions ! that they should not be 
''steadfast, unmovable, always abounding 
in the work of the Lord" ! 



184 THE CLOSEK WALK. 



CHAPTER XII. 

ASSUEANCE OF HOPE — ITS RELATIONS TO 
SANCTIFICATION. 

" 'Tis a point I long to know ; 

Oft it causes anxious tliouglit. 
Do I love the Lord, or no? 
Am 1 His, or am I not ? 
# » * » * 

Lord, decide ttie doubtful case ; 

Tliou wh.0 art thy people's Sun, 
Shine upon thy vrork of grace. 
If it he indeed begun." 

Newton 

" And we desire that every one of you do show the same 
diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end.'' — Heb* 
6: 11. 

^HE land of Canaan promised by God 
to the posterity of Abraham, it is 
not strange that the patriarch, in his earnest 

desire for some confirmation of his faith, 
should have asked, ^'Lord God, whereby 
shall I know that I shall inherit it?" The 
goodliness of the land, the fact that he was 




ASSUEANCE OF HOPE. 185 

then childless, and that a strong nation pos- 
sessed it, all conspired to prompt the inquiry 
and to make it both natural and proper. 
The miracle, also, that God wrought in 
reply, clearly evinced the reasonableness of 
the request. 

But if Abraham, with the promise of the 
earthly Canaan, longed to know assuredly 
that it would be his, a similar desire is felt 
by every aspirant after its great antitype, 
heaven. We do but express in words what 
every Christian in his heart feels, when in 
their behalf we repeat the inquiry, '' Whereby 
shall I know that I shall inherit it?" Nor, 
although the days of visions and dreams 
are over, need we despair of having this 
question satisfactorily answered. 

We all know that a ''full assurance of hope" 
has in this life been attained by some saints. 
Inspired biography is full of such instances. 
They lie all along the line of the Church's 
history, from the time of Job, who in the 

16* 



186 THE CLOSER WALK. 

confidence of his faith exclaimed, ^' / know 
that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall 
stand at the latter day upon the earth/' to 
Paul, who with equal boldness could say, 
^' For to me to live is Christ, and to die is 
gain." And surely whatever heights of 
piety any of God's people may in a past 
age have attained, it is the privilege of 
Christians now to reach. 

Moreover, were it impossible for men ever 
to arrive at a certain knowledge of their 
personal acceptance with God, why in His 
word is it so frequently commanded? Of 
what utility would obedience to such an in- 
junction as this be, ^^ Examine yourselves, 
whether ye be in the faith; prove your own 
selves," if, after all the introspection, we 
could arrive at no definite conclusion with 
reference to our true spiritual condition ? 

In applying, then, the inquiry of Abraham 
with regard to the earthly Canaan to the 
hope of heaven that as Christians we cherish, 



ASSUEANCE OF HOPE. 187 

we repeat the remark that it is no impracti- 
cable question that we propose. It is the 
privilege of every believer to attain even 
in this life a full assurance of his personal 
acceptance by Christ and his heirship in 
the inheritance of the saints. ''Being justi- 
fied by faith, we have peace with God, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom 
also we have access by faith into this grace 
wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the 
glory of God." Conscious of great weak- 
ness and sin, and knowing not what shall 
betide him in the future, the Christian may 
yet, looking down the line of his life, and 
seeing its end on that bed of trembling 
where his breath grows shorter, and his 
blood stops, and the whole tabernacle of his 
flesh begins to crumble, exclaim, ''I know 
in whom I have believed, and am persuaded 
that He is able to keep that which I have 
committed unto Him against that day." 
And how blessed is such a condition ! 



188 THE CLOSER WALK. 

An inhabitant of earth, but a certain heir 
of heaven; a poor mortal, but 'Hhe Spirit 
itself bearing witness with his spirit that 
he is a child of God/' Can a higher felicity 
than this be imagined? An old writer, 
speaking of faith as the ring that the bride- 
groom of the Church places upon the finger 
of all chosen to be His bride, says of a full 
assurance of hope, ^'that it may be con- 
sidered as the brilliant, or the cluster of 
brilliants, which adorn the ring, and make 
it incomparably more beautiful and valua- 
ble/' And this diamond of full assurance 
in the golden ring of faith, '' the believer's 
felicity," he adds, ^' is only inferior to that 
of just spirits made perfect in heaven/' 

But the certain knowledge of our accept- 
ance by Christ within the reach of every 
believer, how is it to be attained ? By the 
memory of hy-gone experience ? By the 
ability of recalling a moment in the past 
of marked conversion? How almost uni- 



ASSUEANCE OF HOPE. 189 

versal is this mode of deciding the question, 
'^ Am I a Christian?" A certificate of elec- 
tion into Christ's kingdom, it is supposed, 
must read thus : ^' One, two, three, or more 
years ago, I was the subject of a great change. 
Christ met me in the way of sin, as He met 
Saul on the road to Damascus, and, though 
I heard no voice, and saw no light that 
blinded me, as he did, yet I had then new 
and very peculiar feelings ; and was not that 
the new birth ? Did not Christ then com- 
mence a work of grace upon my heart ? and, 
as grace always completes what it begins, 
may I not confidently conclude that I am a 
child of God ?" Of present experience, of 
what is now the soul's actual conditionj not 
one word is said: all is an experience ex- 
humed from the past. 

How hazardous with such a certificate to 
come up to the pearly gates of the New Jeru- 
salem and to hope therein to gain admis- 
sion ! We would not, indeed, have men 



190 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

entirely forget the day when they supposed 
themselves to have entered upon the divine 
life, — if of that time they have any distinct 
remembrance, — nor would we have them 
altogether exclude their experience at that 
time from their decision of the question of 
their present interest in Christ. It doubtless 
forms a single fact that should then be con- 
sidered; but hardly more. Upon it the 
great question of our acceptance with God 
can never turn. Christianity cannot be in 
the soul as a matter of history only, but 
always of present and living experience. 

And equally dangerous with this is the 
attempt to decide the question of our per- 
sonal call and election into Christ's kingdom 
by the occasional enjoyment of rapturous 
religious emotion. No one, in reading the 
biographies of good men, can have failed to 
notice the fact that God sometimes, in the 
fulness of His kindness, seems in a very spe- 
cial and peculiar way to manifest Himself to 



ASSURANCE OF HOPE. 191 

His people. He comes very near to them. 
He soothes their heart. He encourages 
them. He feeds them with the grapes of 
Eshcol, and almost gives them a vision of 
their eternal home. Perhaps they are alone, 
in the struggle of a closet-prayer; and as 
their earnest cry ascends to God, the voice 
comes back, ^' Be of good cheer : thy sins are 
forgiven thee." Perhaps they are in some 
difficult service, where temptations beat so 
hard upon them that they are afraid, and, as 
they stand trembling and ready to sink, God 
says to them, '' Fear not, thou worm Jacob : 
I am with thee." Perhaps they are sick, 
nigh unto death, and, while God shakes their 
bones over the sepulchre. He teaches them to 
exclaim, '' I know that if my earthly house 
of this tabernacle is dissolved, I have a build- 
ing of God, an house not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens." How beautifully 
does Coleridge describe such seasons in the 
Christian's life ! 



192 THE CLOSER WALK. 

" In some hour of solemn jubilee, 
The massy gates of Paradise are thrown 
Wide open, and forth come, in fragments wild, 
Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies. 
And odors snatched from beds of amaranth, 
And they that from the crystal river of life 
Sprung up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales ! 
The favored good man in his lonely walk 
Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks 
Strange bliss, which he shall recognize in heaven." 

But to the enjoyment of seasons like these 
shall a man look for the conclusive evidence 
of his being in a gracious state ? Are we for 
the full assurance of hope to depend upon 
the memory of such prelibations of hea- 
venly bliss ? Observe how much here de- 
pends upon constitutional temperament, 
and how much more likely men of keen sen- 
sibility and lively imagination are to have 
such experiences than those of a cold and 
phlegmatic disposition I 

Moreover, in the realm of mere emotion, 
we are here just where we may be most 
easily self-deceived. There are other in- 
fluences besides the Divine Spirit, capable 



ASSUKANGE OF HOPE. 193 

of operating most powerfully upon the feel- 
ings. An impassioned description of heaven, 
united with pathetic appeals and fervent 
exhortations, has sometimes filled an un- 
godly mind not only with an earnest desire 
for its happiness, but with a rapturous joy 
that seemed to it almost like a foretaste of 
glory. 

But if '' assurance of hope" is in neither 
of these ways to be attained, where is it to 
be found ? What will warrant the confident 
conviction that we are the friends of God, 
and certify our election into the kingdom of 
His Son ? We answer emphatically, our sane- 
tificationj the soul's increase in inward holi- 
ness j its possession of all the graces of the 
new life. In a man's certificate of Christian 
character is there not one word said of his 
experience at conversion, nor yet any men- 
tion made of his subsequent rapturous emo- 
tions, but do we simply read, " Faith, Vir- 
tue, Knowledge, Temperance, Patience, God- 

17 



194 THE CLOSER WALK. 

liness, Brotherly Kindness, Charity, these 
things are in him and abound/' how can 
any doubt his acceptance with Christ ? The 
possession of these graces '^ makes his call- 
ing AND ELECTION SURE/' 

Some days before Columbus caught a 
glimpse of the New World, land-birds of 
beautiful plumage hovered round his ships 
and filled the air with their sweet music. 
Certain harbingers of his great discovery ! 
How did the courage of his disheartened 
crew revive at the sight ! They knew now 
that their perilous voyage would not be in 
vain, that the long-looked-for land was just 
before them, and that they had won for 
themselves an immortality of glory. An 
office not unlike this is performed by the 
graces of Christianity to the voyager who 
on the ocean of life is sailing to eternity. 
Beholding his character adorned with these 
graces, — seeing these birds of Paradise ca- 
reering on bright wings around him, — he 



ASSUEANCE OF HOPE. 195 

cannot doubt that he is bound heavenward, 
that he is nearing his home, and that he 
will finally enter upon its everlasting felicity. 
''Full assurance of hope" is. then, to be 
obtained only by a persevering effort to lead 
a holy life. It is a flower that we pluck as 
we struggle on in the rugged pathway of 
our sanctification. It is when we become 
more and more Christ-like, get new vic- 
tories over sin, bridle lust and evil passion 
more perfectly, in a word, come nearer and 
nearer to God, that He comes nearer to us, 
and, embracing us in His paternal arm, en- 
ables us across the Jordan to behold the 
celestial Canaan as our home. 



196 THE CLOSEE WALK. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HOLINESS HERE — ITS CONNECTION WITH 
GLORY HEREAFTER. 



" Who are tlieae in brigiit array, 

Th.i3 innumerable th.rong. 
Round the altar nigbt and day 

Hymning one triumphant song? 
****** 
These through fiery trials trod ; 

These from great affliction came ; 
Now, before the throne of God, 

Sealed with His almighty name. 
Clad in raiment pure and -white, 

Victor palms in every hand. 
Through their dear Redeemer's might. 

More than conquerors they stand." 

MONTQOMERT. 

" And behold I come quickly ; and my reward is with 
me, to give every man according as his work shall be." — 
Rev. 22 : 12. 



;HE sacred Scriptures reveal nothing 
for the mere gratification of curiosity. 
Every thing that is practically necessary to 
be known, with a view to its influence on 
the heart and conduct, they teach with the 



HOLINESS AND GLORY. 197 

utmost simplicity and directness ; but fur- 
ther than that they seldom go. '^ A light- 
house on a dark and stormy coast/' they 
show us where the port is, and how we 
must steer our vessel if we would hope to 
enter it in safety; but of the cities or green 
fields which spread themselves around it, 
and of the people who inhabit them, they 
reveal to us almost nothing. 

And, bitter as may be the disappoint- 
ment that this reticence occasions, it still, 
clearly, furnishes us with no valid objection 
to the Bible's inspiration. Indeed, it is an 
evidence of its divine origin. An impostor 
or a mere enthusiast would have been ex- 
ceeding garrulous upon such a theme as 
heaven. He would have enlarged on all 
the particulars of a future life, and would 
have given us the most lively and glow- 
ing description of things so interesting to 
curiosity. And who can say that to afford 
us this evidence of the divinity of God's 

17* 



198 THE CLOSER WALK. 

word is not one of the reasons for ''the 
hriefj dry, and general language of Scrip- 
ture on these points" ? 

But let us not speak of the revelations 
of the Bible with reference to the believer's 
future home as if they were wholly confined 
to the simple point of how it may be 
reached. Our personal and practical in- 
terest in heaven wider than this, so are the 
teachings of inspiration. 

To afford both encouragement to the 
zealous Christian and alarm to the negligent, 
two facts — with others — are plainly taught 
us in the sacred Scriptures with reference 
to the eternal abode of the righteous. 

1. There is not among the saved in heaven 
a perfect equality of glory and happiness. 
All saints full both of honor and blessed- 
ness, all have not the same capacity for 
either. ''And they that be wise" (teachers) 
" shall shine as the brightness of the firma- 
ment ; and they that turn many to righteous- 



HOLINESS AND GLOEY. 199 

ness, as the stars for ever and ever." 
" There is one glory of the sun, and another 
glory of the moon, and another glory of the 
stars; for one star differeth from another 
star in glory. So also is the resurrection 
of the dead." 

2. This diversity of glory and happiness 
among saints hereafter will be both occa- 
sioned and measured by the difference in 
their holiness and usefulness in this life. 
''He which soweth sparingly shall reap 
also sparingly ; and he which soweth houn- 
tifully shall reap also bountifully y ''Be- 
hold, I come quickly, and my reward is 
with me, to give every man according as 
his work shall be.'' "If we suffer, we shall 
also reign with Him." In Christ's parable 
of the poundvS — which was evidently in- 
tended to convey to us some knowledge 
respecting our final judgment — we find that 
the reward bestowed by the nobleman upon 
his servants, intrusted with the same deposit, 



200 THE CLOSER WALK. 

was in every case exactly measured by the 
improvement that they made of it. The 
man who turned his trust to a tenfold im- 
provement, and he who gained with his 
pound five others, were rewarded, suc- 
cessively, by a ten and d. five fold authority. 
And these facts with reference to heaven, 
as they are revealed for our encouragement 
and warning, so are they to this end fre- 
quently employed by the sacred penmen. 
Christian teachers, in this day^ seem to be 
afraid to speak of the rewards of heaven as 
proportioned by the good works that be- 
lievers here perform. They hesitate to em- 
ploy this motive as a stimulus to Christian 
activity, lest in some minds they might thus 
weaken belief in that great cardinal truth 
of justification hy faith alone. But the 
apostles and early preachers of Christianity 
had no such fear. They were covetous of a 
high place in heaven for all among whom 
they labored; and, knowing that this was 



HOLINESS AND GLORY. 201 

the reward of faithfulness here, they were 
constantly stimulating their hearers by such 
a prize to a life both of holiness and useful- 
ness. By this motive they pointed even their 
exhortations to pecuniary liberality, — the 
very lowest and easiest form of beneficence : 
^' Charge them that are rich in this world 
. . . that they do good, that they be rich 
in good works, ready to distribute, willing 
to communicate : laying up in store for 
themselves a good foundation against the 
time to come, that they may lay hold on 
eternal life.'' 

A radical distinction, however, should in 
this connection be observed between the 
prize held out to the Christian, and all the 
glory and greatness of this world. ^'In the 
present life, the highest objects of ambition, 
and those which men most eagerly strive 
after, are such as, hy their nature^ can only 
be attained by a few. That there should 
be any who are wealthy, powerful, and 



202 THE CLOSEE WALK. 

celebrated, implies a necessity that there 
should be others who are poor, subjects, 
and obscure. That all, or even the greater 
part, of any community should be rich 
men, or rulers, or eminent, is not only im- 
possible, but inconceivable." 

But this is not so of that prize which 
should excite the ambition of God's people. 
Kfew cannot win it to the exclusion of the 
rest. The elevation of one saint in heaven 
does not imply the depression of another. 
The power and splendor and riches of that 
better world may be enjoyed by an un- 
limited number, and by each in proportion 
to his fitness for it. In the race for most 
worldly objects, ^^they which run, run all; 
but one receiveth the prize :" in the pursuit 
of heavenly blessings, all may so run as to 
obtain. 

Here, then, is the motive with which we 
would now urge Christian believers to a 
'' closer waW with God. No real progress 



HOLINESS AND GLOBY. 203 

in religion, no increase of personal holiness, 
ever made in this world, will be unnoticed 
or unrewarded by God. Growing in grace 
here, and ever ascending in moral character 
nearer and nearer to God, we are thus con- 
tinually adding new jewels to the crown of 
our everlasting rejoicing, and preparing for 
ourselves a high place of glory and blessed- 
ness in heaven. 

"If in some fair and jewelled crown 
That to the blest redeemed is given, 

Are stars that cast their brightness down, 
Loveliest among the gems of heaven, 

It is the diadem he wears" 

whose whole character on earth has been 
the most perfectly transformed into the 
image of Christ. 

And this motive to sanctification we have 
reserved as the triumphant climax of our 
argument, because it is thus reserved in 
the sacred Scriptures. At the close of the 
brief but comprehensive summary of the 
motives by which Peter enforces his ex- 



204 THE CLOSEE, WALK. 

hortation to diligence in the cultivation of 
all the graces of Christianity, we read, 
*^ For so an entrance shall be ministered 
unto you abundantly into the everlasting 
kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ." 

We have already had occasion to refer to 
the figure that in the Greek underlies the 
word which is here translated '^ minister ed^' 
and for which in the fifth verse of the same 
chapter we read ^^ addJ' The reference is 
to those choirs of trained artists which the 
opulent private citizens of Athens gratui- 
tously furnished to the magnificent shows 
of the state. When into that splendid 
capital of Greece, and to its senate-house, 
some distinguished warrior or statesman 
made his triumphant entrance, a whole 
band of musicians welcomed him. He was 
escorted into the city with every possible 
mark of respect. He had an ^^ abundant 
entrance ministered unto him,'^ 



HOLINESS AND GLORY. 205 

And thus, says the apostle, shall it be 
with the Christian who has here been dili- 
gent to add to his faith all the other graces 
of the divine life. He will have a ^^ triumph- 
ant outgate from earth, and a magnificent 
entrance into paradise." It will be with 
him as if a radiant train of holy minstrels 
should escort him to the mansions of im- 
mortal glory and blessedness. The gates 
of heaven will be thrown wide open at his 
approach, and joyfully will he be admitted 
to the felicity of the New Jerusalem. 

Bunyan, ever true to the teachings of in- 
spiration, gives us in his inimitable allegory 
a striking illustration both of this truth 
and its counterpart. '^ Christian," in his 
pilgrimage, was guilty of many relapses 
into sin. He listened to the counsel of Mr. 
Worldly- Wiseman, and turned to go for 
help to Mount Sinai. He fell asleep in the 
arbor and lost his roll out of his bosom; 
and, though warned by the shepherds upon 

18 



206 THE CLOSER WALK. 

the Delectable Mountains of ^Hhe Flatterer j'' 
yet to his temptation did he yield. And so 
in ^^the river ^ Christian had ''great dis- 
tresses." He could hardly keep his "head 
above water." He sometimes lost '' all 
sight of the city that was beyond/' and had 
a long struggle before he found in the river 
''ground to stand upon." 

How different from this is the narrative 
of Mr. Stand-fast^ a man whose name indi- 
cates his character, and who is represented 
by Bunyan as having always abounded in 
the work of the Lord ! What an abundant 
entrance into heaven was ministered to him ! 
Let me quote a few sentences from the 
Dreamer's account of his death: "And now 
the time being come for him to haste away, 
there was a great calm in the river ; where- 
fore Mr. Stand-fast, when he was about 
half-way in, stood a while and talked with 
his companions that had waited upon him 
thither. And he said, This river hath been 



HOLINESS AND GLORY. 207 

a terror to many : yea, the thoughts of it 
also have often frightened me; but now 
methinks I stand easy. . . . The waters, in- 
deed, are to the palate bitter, and to the 
stomach cold ; yet the thoughts of what I 
am going to, and of the convoy that waits 
for me on the other side, do lie as a glowing 
coal at my heart. I see myself now at the 
end of my journey; my toilsome days are 
ended. I am going to see the head which 
was crowned with thorns, and that face 
which was spit upon for me. I have for- 
merly lived by hearsay and faith : but now 
I go where I shall live by sight, and shall 
be with Him in whose company I delight 
myself. I have loved to hear my Lord 
spoken of; and wherever I have seen the 
print of His shoe in the earth, there I 
have coveted to set my foot too. His name 
has been to me as a civet-box, yea, sweeter 
than all perfumes. . . . Now while he was 
thus in discourse, his countenance changed, 



208 THE CLOSER WALK. 

his strong man bowed under him, and after 
that he had said, Take me, for I come unto 
Thee, he ceased to be seen of them." 

''At the convent of Mount Sinai, the 
monks, ever watchful against their enemies, 
admit guests one by one, hoisting them by 
a basket into a lofty window through the 
wall; but when a visitor arrives with a 
special letter from the head of their order 
at Cairo, the huge gates of the convent are 
unbarred, and the cavalcade ride through 
the ample portal and up the paved court, 
where the monks are drawn up in order to 
welcome the guest, who is conducted to the 
principal chamber and attended with every 
mark of respect."* Something not unlike 
this we may suppose to occur in the entrance 
of believers into their final home in hea- 
ven. Some ''are saved as by fire." They 
'^ scarcely" get into the kingdom. They 

* The Christian Graces, p. 276. 



HOLINESS AND GLOEY. 209 

enter heaven as by the ^^ postern gate/' 
While at the approach of others we may- 
well imagine the angels as exclaiming, ''^Lift 
up your heads, ye gates, and be ye lifted 
up, ye everlasting doors," and receive this 
trophy of the Saviour's love. 



18* 



210 THE CLOSER WALK. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

HOLINESS THE GREAT NECESSITY OF THE 
CHURCH. 

" No careful reader of the New Testament, and observer 
of the present state of the Church, can fail to be con- 
vinced that what she now wants is a high spirituality. The 
Christian profession is sinking in its tone of piety ; the 
line of separation between the Church and the world be- 
comes less and less perceptible ; and the character of genuine 
Christianity, as expounded from pulpits and delineated ia 
books, has too rare a counterpart in the lives and spirit of 
its professors." — Rev. J. A. James. 

" The Church itself requires conversion." — Harris. 

" Christendom itself must be more thoroughly Christian- 
ized before Heathendom will relinquish its old character and 
worship." — Williams. 

HOULD we remark that tlie Cliurcli 
of Christ is now accomplishing but 
feebly and imperfectly the great ends of her 
organization, we would only utter a senti- 
ment to the truthfulness of which every 
pious heart would instantly respond. Like 




GEEAT NECESSITY OF THE CHUECH. 211 

a ponderous engine, the Church is now 
creeping silently over rails that she ought 
to shake by the might of her irresistible 
movement; or, like an immense factory, 
perfect in all the details of its machinery, 
she is achieving but little compared with 
the scope and finish of her structure. Zion 
is not in our day as aggressive upon an un- 
godly world as she once was, or as from her 
predicted successes we might reasonably ex- 
pect. Converts to the truth do not now 
'' fly as clouds, and doves to their windows." 
Great social and political evils do not dis- 
appear before the triumphal march of Chris- 
tianity, nor is heathendom being rapidly 
subjugated to the sway of the Redeemer . 

That the Church has accomplished, even 
within the memory of some now living, 
great and glorious things, and that in view 
of them we ought to take courage and re- 
joice, we cheerfully concede. Going back 
to the time when Bishop Butler said that 



212 THE CLOSER WALK. 

lie ''did not know of a learned man in 
England who believed in the plenary inspi- 
ration of the sacred Scriptures," or to that 
when even a professed minister of Christ 
poured contempt upon missions to the hea- 
then and stigmatized one of the first heralds 
of salvation to India as a '' consecrated 
cobbler"; and contrasting with that the pre- 
sent condition of Christianity both in the 
schools of science and on heathen shores, 
we are constrained to exclaim, Wliat hath 
God wrought! But these victories, what 
are they, to the triumphs which still remain 
to be won? Is not Satan still the God 
of this world? Is not the broad way still 
the thronged way ? Christendom compared, 
either geographically, or with reference to 
the number of her population, with heathen- 
dom, is she not small and almost insignifi- 
cant? Do not our hearts sink within us 
when the simple statistics upon this subject 
are presented us ? 



GBEAT NECESSITY OF THE CHURCH. 213 

Nor, when from this view of the com- 
parative inefficiency of the Church — a view 
the correctness of which no one can doubt — 
we come to inquire as to the cause, can we 
long hesitate in our reply. 

Wide-spread doctrinal errors have, in 
days past, shorn the Church of much of 
her strength. But certainly it is not so 
now. Confessing that there may exist in 
our religious teaching a lack of vigor of 
statement and clearness of elucidation, there 
is yet, it must be conceded, no radical 
unsoundness in it, working its destructive 
influences at the very core of piety. Our 
creeds are Scriptural; and when men aban- 
don them, they usually receive as their 
reward little else than the virtuous indig- 
nation of the good. 

Religious disputations once consumed no 
small portion of the Church's energy. Men 
discussed questions of predestination and 
election, free will and sovereignty, with an 



214 THE CLOSEB WALK. 

acrimony that led to personal and life-long 
alienations and that brought great dishonor 
upon religion. Divines were then '^famous 
according as they had lifted up axes upon 
the thick trees.'' But now theological con- 
troversies are, to a great extent, at an 
end. The disciples of Calvin and Arminius, 
Cranmer and Knox, in our day live side by 
side in peace. 

Heretofore the energies of the Church 
have been somewhat impeded by the want 
of proper organizations. Christians who 
desired to do any thing for their Master 
were constrained to act aloney or, at best, in 
very small companies. There were then no 
arrangements for consolidating the activities 
of the Church, and bringing them all to- 
gether to bear upon any single point. But 
now so complete and comprehensive are our 
plans of Christian exertion that no effort 
in any department of labor need ever be 
made alone or in vain. The net-work of 



GEEAT NECESSITY OF THE CHURCH. 215 

the Churcli's charities cover the whole field 
of man's moral destitution ; and her life is 
connected by so many wires with the whole 
life of humanity, that any of her myriad 
members may, if they please, be put into 
a communication of beneficence with their 
entire race. 

Nor, still again, is it possible to charge 
the present inefficiency of the Church upon 
any want in the number, wealth, intelli- 
gence, and social standing of her members. 
Estimated by any law of mere worldly 
measurement, the Church, as an institution 
designed to influence society, cannot be 
despised. Zion numbers among her pro- 
fessed members millions of our race. She 
has an average proportion of the world's 
wealth, and a very large share of its intel- 
ligence and commercial enterprise. 

Where, then, is the point of her failure ? 
What is the element of influence she wants ? 
Her progress in the subjugation of this 



216 THE CLOSEB WALK. 

world to Christ, why is it so slow as often- 
times to sadden its anxious expectants, and 
so to embolden the enemies of the truth as 
to lead them to exclaim, '^ "Where is now 
thy God?" 

Our answer contains a serious charge 
against the Church of Christ, and one which 
ought not to be made without unmistakable 
evidence of its truth. There is in this day, 
among the professed people of God, a great 
want of deep J thorough piety. Christians 
are zealous, but not spiritually-minded; 
liberal, but not given to self-mortification; 
anxious to promote the extension of religion 
in the world, but strangely indifferent to its 
progress in their own souls. They linger 
too much around the mere rudiments of 
Christianity, and do not go on to perfection. 
They are satisfied with living at a great dis- 
tance from God, and are too tolerant of per- 
sonal imperfections. Is it not so ? 

In the Bible the Christian life is uniformly 



GBEAT NECESSITY OF THE CHUHCH. 217 

spoken of as one of self-denial and suffering. 
The followers of Christ, according to His 
own declaration, ''are to deny themselves, 
and daily to take up their cross/' Jesus is 
an example to His people in His sufferings. 
Among the truthful and significant devices 
of the ancient Church employed to illustrate 
the position of believers in this world, was 
one representing a bullock standing between 
a plough and an altar, with the inscription, 
^^ Ready for either!' Would the facts of 
Christian experience in the modern Church 
allow the use of such a device ? "When men 
now unite with the people of God, do they 
feel that they must hold themselves in con- 
stant readiness either 'Ho drag and swelter 
in the field of service, or to bleed on the 
altar of sacrifice'' ? 

Self-denial is not with us the universal 
law of Christianity, but the occasional ex- 
ception. The contributions of time and 
money that are made to the cause of Christ 

19 



218 THE CLOSER WALK. 

seldom reach the point of absolute sacrifice. 
It is the leisure that secular business may 
afford, or the surplus of an income that 
cannot well be expended on worldly luxuries, 
that is usually contributed to the extension 
of Christ's kingdom. '^I give as much of 
my time and means to the Church as I con- 
veniently can/' is the almost boastful ex- 
pression of many modern professors. Should 
God receive nothing for Himself save that 
which costs the donor something j how few of 
the gifts that His people now present to 
Him would be accepted ! 

Again, in the sacred Scriptures, Chris- 
tians are represented as ^' do peculiar peophj^ 
and ^^ conformity to the world'' is most so- 
lemnly forbidden. But is this line of sepa- 
ration always perceptible? Do Christians 
never follow ^^ the apish fashions of the 
world" ? After a long acquaintance^ have 
we never been almost startled by hearing 
that our friend was a member of some 



GREAT NECESSITY OF THE CHUECH. 219 

Christian Churcli ? Are " grand equipages," 
and '^ splendid entertainments/' and all the 
pomp and vanity of ^^ high life," consistent 
with ^Hhe simplicity that is in Christ'' ? 

We would remember that woe pronounced 
by our blessed Lord upon those who '' offend 
one of His little ones." And we would not 
dare to exaggerate, even in the slightest de- 
gree, the faults of the Church, which is, after 
all, Christ's body. But are we not now ut- 
tering true and honest words, and words 
that we should write with tears, as Paul did 
his mournful message of the existence in the 
Church at Philippi of enemies to the cross 
of Christ? An occasional presence at the 
communion-table J is not that every thing 
which is ^^ peculiar'* and '^ unworldly'* with 
multitudes of the professed followers of 
Christ? 

But do our readers desire still further 
evidence of the sad fact that it is to the 
want of a deep, thorough piety in the 



220 THE CLOSER WALK. 

Churcli that we are to attribute her present 
comparative inefficiency, let them observe 
how all her wants root themselves in this 
one J and would be removed the very moment 
that this grand defect was remedied. 

The Church needs an increase of minis- 
ters. ^'The harvest is plenteous, but the 
laborers are few." ''Any religious body," 
however, as Isaac Taylor says, ''within 
which there is vitality ^ will supply itself 
with an adequate proportion of ministers." 
In such an internal condition, it will need no 
external pressure to induce its sons to devote 
themselves to the work of preaching Christ. 
The ministry is the natural outgrowth of 
the life of the Church, and it cannot wane 
save as that life declines. Even should the 
sacred office be hedged about on every side 
with trials, and its occupants be in great 
peril of terminating their days by martyr- 
dom, yet with a vigorous and healthy life in 
the Church many a mother would take her 



GEEAT NECESSITY OF THE CHUECH. 221 

infant son, as did Nonna, the mother of 
Gregory Nazianzen, and joyfully dedicate 
him to this work ; and many a young man, 
averting his gaze from all the tempting em- 
ployments of secular life, would rejoice in 
the privilege of becoming a herald of the 
cross. 

The Church is greatly in need of a larger 
and more liberal charity to all her benevo- 
lent institutions. '^ Lying now like Lazarus 
at the gate of Opulence, where Christians fare 
sumptuously every day, or like mendicants 
wandering among the churches and receiv- 
ing only the shreds and parings of liberal 
incomes," these institutions need to be re- 
ceived at the table of God's people, and to 
be sustained and enlarged by their self- 
denying contributions. The clenched hand 
of avarice needs to be opened ; and, instead 
of that poor pittance that men now dole out 
in charity to the Church, every man is to 
learn to give " as the Lord hath prospered 

19-^ 



222 THE CLOSER WALK. 

him J' Indeed, the whole theory of Cliristian 
stewardship needs to be put into practice. 
Men are to live out in their lives that truth 
'^ considered by all as so true that it has lost 
all the power of truth and lies bedridden in 
the dormitory of the soul." 

But what can ever accomplish this but a 
deep and thorough work of grace upon the 
heart? What influence short of the con- 
tinual indwelling of the Holy Spirit can up- 
root covetousness ? Of the Macedonian Chris- 
tians Paul says, '^ They gave their very selves 
to the Lord first." No wonder, then, that the 
riches of their liberality abounded in deep 
poverty. Their personal dedication to God 
solves the riddle of their noble charity. 

The Church in our day pre-eminently 
needs powerful and wide-spread revivals of 
religion. Such seasons have been promised 
her. Pentecost was the earnest of their 
coming. Such seasons are seemingly abso- 
lutely essential to her final success. At the 



GBEAT NECESSITY OF THE CHURCH. 223 

present rate of the Church's progress, the 
world would never be converted to Christ. 
"We must wait the fulfilment of the promise 
that '' a nation shall be born at once/' before 
we can hope that Christ's kingdom will 
speedily come. 

But of the advent of that day can we 
cherish any well-grounded expectation until 
we see a deepening piety and a sturdier 
vigor of principle among God's own people? 
Though Jehovah is a Sovereign, can we hope 
that He will ever abundantly pour out His 
Spirit upon the ungodly world while His 
Church is cold and worldly? 

Here, then, we repeat it, is the great ne- 
cessity of the Church in this day, a deeper 
work of grace in the hearts of her individual 
members. ''A sickly and bedwarfed Chris- 
tianity" will not furnish the requisite la- 
borers or the needful funds for the world's 
conversion; nor with such a type of piety 
dare we hope for great outpourings of the 



224 THE CLOSER WALK. 

Spirit. What now we most need in the 
Church is holy men, men just as absorbed 
in winning souls to Christ as worldlings are 
in gathering gold ; men who, in the touch- 
ingly beautiful language of one of the old 
Covenanters, ''will all day long find nothing 
but Christ to rest in, and whose very sleep 
is a pursuing after Him in dreams, and who 
intensely desire to awake in His likeness.'' 
We need, as Christians, to make that motto 
adopted by that corp of young Eomish 
priests, the Redemptorists, who are seeking 
to revive the rapidly waning power of the 
Papacy, our own : '' All for thee, Lord ; 
my Jesus, all for thee !" In this age which 
has written ^^ progress'' on its banners, and 
whose very watchword is " Onward," it will 
not do for Christianity to be the only thing 
that is not advancing. 

Listen, then, fellow-disciples of Christ, to 
tJie powerful array of motives by which God 
would persuade you to a closer walk with 



aREAT NECESSITY OF THE CHUBCH. 225 

Him. It is your duty, '^ Tliis is the will 
of God, even your sanctification." Your 
highest usefulness demands it. You must he 
good to do good. The perils of religious de- 
clension threaten you if you do not advance. 
If with you in the divine life there is no 
progressionj there must be retrogression. 
The way of sanctification is the only way 
that leads to a ^^full assurance of hope'' 
To make your '^ calling and election sure,'* 
you must diligently cultivate in your life 
every grace of the Spirit. And each new 
step that you take in holiness here will add 
new lustre to that unfading crown of glory 
that awaits you in heaven. 

Can you, then, hesitate ? The potency of 
these motives, can you resist it ? Heretofore 
indifferent to your progress in piety, can 
you now close this little volume and live as 
before? Have you still no longings of heart 
for a ''closer walk" with God? We can 



226 THE CLOSER WALK. 

only, in parting, leave these solemn ques- 
tions with you. 

"Now the God of peace, that brought 
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that 
great Shepherd of the sheep, through the 
blood of the everlasting covenant, make you 
perfect in every good work to do His will, 
working in you that which is well pleasing in 
His sight, through Jesus Christ ; to whom 
be glory for ever and ever. Amen." 



THE END. 



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